How do you define (meaningful) choice?

[Shurrikhan]

Any choice where optimization is contextual and layered enough that one can make a legitimately rewarding gambit based around what smaller aspects of optimization click better for them.

Perhaps the top 1% can immediately crank out the math in their head or memorize every possible scenario, but everyone else, there will therefore be tendencies that can almost feel like specializations, with guidelines that are continually built upon and adjusted over time and over experience within a particular fight.

That usually means, though, that the difference between basic failure and basic success isn't actually that huge. For meaningful choice, the basics can't be so overwhelming in their reward gap that minutial nuances don't have room to operate.

If it's pure waste ever to Dragon Kick two Opo-opo skills in a row or to ever Bootshine two Opo-opo skills in a row, or to ever use the Full Thrust combo twice, sure, you've reinforced the reward for the barest of basic rules... but you've also removed that much room for actual decision-making (e.g., where double-Boot responds to Chakra generation [RNG] to cap Chakra just before Riddle of Fire fades, to get in one more TFC under the damage amp window, and/or maybe sets up the timing so that there will be one more Leaden Fist inside the next RoF under full raid buffs instead of a raw Kick... if you manage also to do everything else perfectly in your now more risky/less flexible rotational strategy).

Luckily, healers' always some degree of playing around other players capacity for error --when the damage intake respective to available healing output is decently high-- adds a fair bit to that equation already, so long as things aren't irrecoverably difficult (which would then just always force the safest options).

[Mostly_Raxus]

more than 2 choices of gear per slot each "season."
multiple forms of rewarding content not just 4 bosses every half year...
more choice besides "what piece has less skill/spell speed"

[AmiableApkallu]

I feel like the people saying "meaningful consequence" aren't understanding what I mean by choice. Choice has to allow a player to choose actions, and if there is only one right and the punishment severe for not choosing it, that isn't a real choice. As someone said before, it's like offering a person poison or medicine to take when ill. While technically a choice, the reality is that there's only one true option as the other is never picked.

To me, to have meaningful choice requires having - at the minimum - more than one VIABLE choice, and situations where either option can be argued to be correct. Outside of that, it's not a choice. It's being right or wrong.

And thus have you missed the point of my earlier comment. So long as the question is ultimately about maximizing damage, once you have precisely stated the question and scenario, and the criteria by which you will evaluate answers, there is only ever one correct answer (damage is objective, just do the math), and thus by your definition, there is never a real or meaningful choice.

To the extent that one feels there is a meaningful choice to be made, it is because: you're not certain which question it is you actually care about, or you're not certain which criteria you want to use to evaluate answers, or you simply don't have enough information and time available to fully work out the answer before you need to push a button.

Put another way, Broil IV and Ruin II do not provide choice because they might both be the correct answer to a question about dealing damage (this is never the case). They provide choice because they answer different questions and scenarios, and thus provide us the agency to decide what it is we actually care about in this game.

[TheDustyOne]

I feel like the people saying "meaningful consequence" aren't understanding what I mean by choice. Choice has to allow a player to choose actions, and if there is only one right and the punishment severe for not choosing it, that isn't a real choice. As someone said before, it's like offering a person poison or medicine to take when ill. While technically a choice, the reality is that there's only one true option as the other is never picked.

To me, to have meaningful choice requires having - at the minimum - more than one VIABLE choice, and situations where either option can be argued to be correct. Outside of that, it's not a choice. It's being right or wrong.

Again, you're conflating depth with meaning. Depth is good, we should want that, but just because you have multiple choices available (again, my Garuda vs Titan example) doesn't make the choices meaningful. Broil and Ruin are meaningful as they both have consequences to the choice and it's up to us to decide when it's worth taking the risks associated with that choice. Even the poison vs water example is meaningful as it can put emphasis on how much someone values their own life, or heck, whether or not that person is bluffing (certainly wouldn't count on that in that scenario) and as such, there's meaning behind the choice, even if it's an obvious choice for nearly everyone that values their life. If instead I had to choose between 2 brands of lemonade, there's a lot less meaning, either way I have lemonade.

Compare all this with BLM, we have multiple different ways we could move when we need to, but each one has consequences involved; I could use up my Thundercloud, but risk not having it proc later if I don't have Sharpcast up, or it means I have to reapply the DoT early, I could use a stack of Xenoglossy, but I may not be able to use one under raid buffs, I could use up a Firestarter proc, but that may mean I can't Transpose > Fire III in the next UI phase later, maybe I can use that stack of Triplecast, but I may end up having to use a stack on Blizzard III if I use it too late in my AF phase, Xenoglossy and Thundercloud also risks AF running out and tanking my damage. This is gameplay depth with meaningful choices.

[Renathras]

I'm not sure the BLM example is good - healers have that already with their oGCD and instant cast heals and optional Swiftcast use. (BLM is praised a lot but...)

I think I would argue that meaningful choice cannot exist without depth of choice. If there is one right answer and every other answer is wrong, then there is no choice. There have to be more than one "right or close enough" choices, else there is no choice. Imagine if BLM didn't have Thundercloud or Sharpcast or anything other than Scathe and Xenoglossy (that you can use all the time, not limited by stacks). That wouldn't be real choice, since Xenoglossy would always be the right answer and there's no condition where Scathe would be.

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I also think it's interesting two replies back to back say that Broil IV vs Ruin II both is and is not a meaningful choice...

[TheDustyOne]

I'm not sure the BLM example is good

Mind explaining why?

- healers have that already with their oGCD and instant cast heals and optional Swiftcast use. (BLM is praised a lot but...)

In all our examples we're talking about competing choices (GCD vs GCD), oGCDs themselves are usually just "a free thing" every x seconds. You aren't choosing between a Glare cast and Tetragrammaton, you're doing both simultaneously, therefore that's not the choices we're talking about. If you were talking about Aetherflow, that'd be a different subject.

I think I would argue that meaningful choice cannot exist without depth of choice. If there is one right answer and every other answer is wrong, then there is no choice. There have to be more than one "right or close enough" choices, else there is no choice. Imagine if BLM didn't have Thundercloud or Sharpcast or anything other than Scathe and Xenoglossy (that you can use all the time, not limited by stacks). That wouldn't be real choice, since Xenoglossy would always be the right answer and there's no condition where Scathe would be.

Meaningful choice can exist without depth, this is how a lot of jobs end up with very rigid rotations. Sure, old PLD I could use Royal Atonement before Goring, it wasn't the highest damaging choice 99% of the time, but I could do that choice. Under certain circumstances it was optimal in fact. But 99% of the time I should use Goring. The fact the rotation wanted Goring didn't make the choice meaningless, just lacking in depth.

Technically speaking, the choice to use Xenoglossy over Scathe in your example is still meaningful, but of course EXTREMELY shallow because now there's never a time when Scathe has a use. I would agree that it's pointless, but the meaning why someone uses Xeno is clear; it does more damage with no MP. That said, however, we're not talking that hypothetical, BLM as it is has a lot of meaningful choices in its kit, and is the reason why it gets praised. You have to explain why it's not a good example of meaningful choices and depth. I gave my example.

I also think it's interesting two replies back to back say that Broil IV vs Ruin II both is and is not a meaningful choice...

Ultimately it comes down to what definitions people are using; I go by it being about consequence (be it from lower DPS, costing a resource, or some other potential loss). The consequence of Ruin II is less damage, but free movement and a double-weave. Depth is about providing lots of choices with consequences. Depth of course does add meaning to your choices overall, so you are right in that you want many choices, but that each choice needs an associated risk and reward (aka, a consequence). You're also right in that the Scathe/Xeno dichotomy has very little meaning, but I still contend that it has a meaning, just very little meaning, and it should rightfully be rethought if a designer made that gameplay choice possible.

To me, a meaningless choice is if all the answers have the same outcome; if Xenoglossy and Scathe both costed the same MP and resource and did the same damage, then it's a false choice. If Xeno and Scathe had different damage outcomes but stilll cost the same resources, it's a shallow choice. If Xeno and Scathe had different resources and different damage outcomes, then it starts to gain more depth. Depth can make something more meaningful, but it doesn't mean a shallow choice doesn't have meaning.

[vetch]

I imagine this is how they design because it's cheaper. I don't like the way that it is. I call trying to create an environment where there's a limited potential amount of player friction a noble goal, not what we actually have. You know what they say about the road to Hell.

Yes, it's absolutely because it's cheaper than designing and moderating a more traditional and social MMO.

I'm not sure what you mean about e.g. Toto-Rak, people just pull the boss all the time in those dungeons. I've never heard of their enforcement getting in the way of that. I assume that duty support gives a skipper more of an argument to tell the new player: 'if you want to watch cutscenes, use duty support,' and now they have even less of an incentive it chances to bump into people and make friends.

That used to happen; people would pressure cutscene watchers to skip and say crap like 'the inn room has your cutscenes'. The culture shifted because the developers didn't want us doing that anymore, and took steps to stop it -- but, notably to our conversation, without going back and amputating the relevant game content.

The same could have been done if they had chosen to keep a more meaningful skill design with more possible 'wrong choices'.

Hell, the game itself will interrupt your cutscene if you're locked out of the arena and the timer to join the battle tics down. You can select 'no' and it'll still force you in. It was a huge pain in the ass in Castrum Lacus Latore... It's always been the players letting others view the cutscenes themselves unless it was old old Prae or places like Bowl of Embers where you're just trapped in the starting gate.

IIRC the boss arena lockout ejecting you from cutscenes is a recent change. The first time I had a tank not wait for a cutscener in old Toto-Rak (which was easy to do accidentally because Graffias would vacuum-suck everyone right off of the ledge that used to be there and you couldn't climb back out), we just had to do the whole boss fight with three people.

[TheDustyOne]

Another thing to note as this is related, this is also why I think people push back against single-button combos.

The combos themselves aren't deep, there's no reason to ever start the fight with your second combo hit over your first, but the choice of it being there is what makes the first combo hit meaningful. That's why when the buttons are consolidated, even though no depth was lost, some meaning behind the choice is also lost with it. Including things like the potential to fat-finger, or slip up because you were paying attention to something else, etc. By condensing combos, you are technically stripping away a meaningful choice, even if it's in reality a completely shallow choice.

I'm in favour of consolidated combos (with the choice to separate them again) because it's a shallow choice, but not necessarily that it's a meaningless choice. There have been extremely niche times in the past to break combos when optimizing because it better lined up with certain fight mechanics and bursts, but such times are extremely rare and, as far as I'm aware, were only really a thing in ultimate when going for stupidly optimized runs.

[Shurrikhan]

I also think it's interesting two replies back to back say that Broil IV vs Ruin II both is and is not a meaningful choice...

The way I see it, such depends on tuning. Under the present tuning, for instance, there's "meaningful" choice only if the downtime is around some 25-35% of a GCD, as in that case the best solution is not quite so obvious:

Broil IV will deal 34% more damage, but shift your GCDs by that 25-35% of a GCD accordingly, which means that the optimal action then depends on predicted future loss, as well, whether you'd lose a GCD under raid buffs from distancing the start of your GCD further from their activations times, and your DoT tick alignment.

...Which is, frankly, more than most will have the remaining capacity/willingness to track, and therefore the best decision will at least seem like a gamble that favors personal affinities/preferences (whatever optimizations you best click with and mindful of what total load you're willing to deal with). Which is as close to real choice as anything ever gets.

If the downtime is (obviously going to be) just some 10% of a GCD of downtime, the best option is obvious and fails to offer much, if any, "choice": use Broil V instead of wasting the 75 extra potency possible for that (roughly a) GCD's time. Similarly, if it's (obviously going to be) much more than a third a GCD, the best option likewise becomes obvious: you use Ruin II's since what else could you do with that time.

______________________

Even then "choice" is largely subjective (though not any sense of irreconcilability) based upon what degree of informed-ness a player might have by which to solve the given optimization, and so when we talk about designing meaningful choice into a kit, we are then really just talking about that "choice" as perceived by an average or iconic cluster among the job's players.

And yes, we can expect that some players will be more familiar with different things and therefore intuit more or less, and/or track such more easily or less, among the different bits of information useful to solving optimization problems. We wouldn't expect the average Black Mage to be as mindful of baiting mechanics for future positional access for self, tank, and co-DPS as we would a Monk, etc., etc.

[Post]

As has the same damage kit in 6.X that it did in 4.X. WHM has the same damage kit other than it lost Aero 3 and it gained Misery. How were they "a blast to play in that era" when they had effectively the same DPS kits?

What else changed?

I'd say WHM's gameplay has been bollocks since StB, frankly. The reason it improved going into ShB is they basically didn't touch it aside from their dumb lillies in StB, except that they drastically changed Cleric Stance. Most people probably don't agree that it was fun to play around, but the old stance-swapping Cleric Stance certainly added a lot of 'execution complexity' to healer gameplay. WHM most especially was affected by this considering the rest of their toolkit has always been "press button, directly heal targets" where SCH and AST have always been at least a little more involved to do their role itself.

WHM did not improve because the number of offensive actions is superior / inferior now or during ShB. In fact, its gameplay has become less "meaningful" (in the sense of 'if you make an error, there's consequence') with:
-The universal healer 1.5sec cast (removed the need to consider Dia / Lillies as movement or oGCD weaving tools when trying to optimize your play)
-The huge radii of healer actions (removed the need to consider positioning or in many cases timing to 'pass' healing checks)
-The removal of Stoneskin means that there's nothing for WHM to do in downtime besides burn lillies, and its ability to prevent one-hit-ko damage on players is limited to benison, Aquaveil and Temperance, all of which have a cooldown (AST also had this problem exacerbated by ShB and EW).
-The combination of Assize into an offensive AND defensive action with the removal of Cleric Stance (even if that were reverted, the number of free actions and range of those actions is so huge that there's even less of a reason to use Assize to heal with today than during HW)


This game's pretty much built around 'execution' given how little choice we get regarding gear/stats/skills and other traditional RPG stuff. Everyone's taste on this is going to be pretty different for what feels good, and usually as someone plays longer they're going to feel more comfortable and possibly even bored if the game doesn't keep them engaged in other ways. For many healers, ShB and its continuation in EW has hit that point, because the only decision in the game we really get to make that affects the gameplay itself is 'what job am I going to play', and thanks to ShB and EW and their universal changes and overly cautious balancing, that matters even less now within the healer role.

As it is, I just /random 4 what healer I'm going to play so I at least get some variety.

Edit: I think that change for forcing players into arenas has been around since late StB, Vetch. I don't recall exactly, but whenever they added the option to enter the arena after you've been locked out, I'm pretty sure it's functioned the way it does now since then. Honestly, it might even be a bug. Maybe we're NOT supposed to be forced in if we select no or don't make a selection. At the very least, I've seen players forced to skip cutscenes in SV ages ago by that change, and when CLL was added (5.3 sometime... 5.31? 5.35?) we were definitely in the time that the arenas behaved that way.