#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Supersnow845]

The implication there is that everything besides what you are using essences with is bad and a grind you inherently want to minimise which is a point I don’t agree with (though I can understand why you reach the conclusions you do if you do have that opinion)

To me everything is a part of Bozja and it’s not just meaningless additions that are designed to waste time

In that way swapping to an unlock system with a limited weight would be a bad design because I lose out on the things that aren’t the base essence uses of CE’s or equivalents, however I will say what you suggest is a good system compromise for if you don’t like the base action grinding

[Shurrikhan]

The implication there is that everything besides what you are using essences with is bad and a grind you inherently want to minimise which is a point I don’t agree with (though I can understand why you reach the conclusions you do if you do have that opinion)

That's not remotely my motivation for the suggested change, though -- nor even a motivation I've implied.

Let's say you're trying to have a cohesive Twisting Coils of Bahamut-esque raid experience, in which each floor flows into the next without necessarily needing to return to the overworld. In this, you are presented with two options:

• Option 1: Bosses drop seemingly miscellaneous tokens which you can return to an NPC on the first floor to identify as a coffer for a given piece of gear for a given job (e.g., Leg Coffer of Fending) which you can then take to an assembler to then turn into a piece of gear of, ultimately (from dropped token to their equivalent coffer to gear) predetermined slot (Head, Chest, Hands, Legs, Feet, Ears, Neck, Wrist, or Finger) and gear class (Fending, Maiming, Striking, Scouting, Aiming, Casting, or healing), tradable only among those present when their respective tokens dropped.
  
  
• Option 2: Bosses drop loot.

The present design feels like the first. It goes damn near out of its way to be as bloated as it is.

[Supersnow845]

Item and system bloat generated from the essence system I don’t really think is a useful criticism because that wouldn’t be hard to fix without doing anything. Just allow the r essence chest to store fragments and you’ve basically solved that problem by itself, or alternatively have enemies you would beat for fragments just drop charges of the item you innately absorb by some kind of power pack and you can go back to camp and draw charges out of the power pack to sell if you want

Remember the lost action system is mostly about augmentation not making the job function on a baseline level. As per your example from the first post this isn’t about using a consumable to make fire 2 usable, it’s about using a consumable to have fire 2 cost 10% less mana. Useful but not remotely essential. I don’t think item bloat is here nor there when it comes to a system like this because it can be handled inside the instance outside of trading, especially since making them permanent unlocks would still leave you with the stupid overly complex menu systems 14 loves using

[Shurrikhan]

Item and system bloat generated from the essence system I don’t really think is a useful criticism because that wouldn’t be hard to fix

Then it should be fixed. I see no point in defending that part of how Bozja's systems currently operate.

And if that inadvertently gives a little more freedom to swap about one's loadouts --e.g., actually play around with the systems introduced-- I have no qualms with that. It's designed to be played with and presently feels unnecessarily stifled -- not in that you need to grind them but more noticeably in that you have to, say, swing 99 charges at a time, such that the charge limit is almost meaningless compared to the simple customization constraint from waste.

Remember the lost action system is mostly about augmentation not making the job function on a baseline level.

I noted as much. But just as Flare, Blizzard II, and Foul aren't specifically necessary to have AoE on BLM but they were nonetheless designed with the clear intent of being able to be used and of benefiting the job, Lost Actions are there to benefit gameplay in Bozja, are they not? At which point, you're left with either a very bloated and thereby inadvertently constrained way to allow them to benefit gameplay in their intended setting, or something much less bloated and constrained more in keeping with direct intent. I'd prefer the latter.

[Supersnow845]

I don’t disagree that bozja’s rather opaque lost action system should be streamlined, I disagree with the idea that “streamlining” it should remove how essences and actions have limited numbers (I don’t mean how stuff like bubble has 99 charges I mean you have to go out and farm bubble as an action) and there are specific systems in place in Bozja to farm those actions as they act as incentives

Like my point is basically removing needing to actually farm the initial items as a solution to streamline the system is throwing the baby out with the bath water

[Shurrikhan]

Like my point is basically removing needing to actually farm the initial items as a solution to streamline the system is throwing the baby out with the bath water

I haven't suggested removing mob grinds as related to being able to use actions, though???

The first spitball suggestion was just to replace the inventory-consuming token-drops (2 stages removed from the actions) with non-inventory-consuming direct action drops that needn't therefore be 99 charges at a time.

The second simply replaces farming integer inventory-consuming tokens (for items for a 99x charges set of Lost Actions) with farming granular non-inventory-consuming Essence that is then consumed on use of Lost actions (such that, say, a Lost Cure IV consumes more than a Lost Cure) and allows one to embed additional effects into said actions and passive benefit for oneself (greater customization) without item bloat. I.e., you still grind, but now there's a more obvious sense of progression to said grind as stronger skills consume more resource but stronger mobs also give more resource. (And you get extra customization, to boot.)

Clarification: By "Essence", I don't mean the potions. I just mean a generic term for a granular resource:

"Essence"-based mock-up, if a fuller fleshing-out were necessary:

Different mobs and objectives reward different amounts of different Essences, which you junction to Lost Actions to source them (consuming said Essence) while receiving passive benefit based on the portion of junction covered by the given Essence (e.g., by slot weight of the actions you've junctioned it to or just the number of a limited amount of actions, or even by precise choice, whatever). Let's say there are 7 essences: Essence of the Veteran, Irregular, Beast, Templar, Watcher, Guardian, and Profane.

• Veteran focuses on just accentuating one's core role and improving general sustainability (a bit more eHP, a bit more MP and HP generation).
• Irregular focuses on flipping one's typical role partly on its head or offering powerful but infrequent cross-role actions.
• Beast focuses on greedy sustained output with tight requirements.
• Templar focuses on group coordination and boons, sometimes conditional to group actions.
• Watcher focuses on quick access to suppression and utility-focused spot-support.
• Guardian focuses on keeping others and self alive through active efforts.
• Profane takes the "Irregular" vibe even further, going so far as to turn standard healing Lost Actions into vampiric heals, grant buffs that temporarily turn most heals into especially powerful attacks while healing from portions of normal attacks' damage dealt, etc.

The more action weight slotted to the given essence, the more of its passive benefits you gain. (I'll let you imagine those out for yourself, in keeping with the themes above.)

Now, let's apply those to a Lost Action. For instance, consider Raise:

• Veteran: Raise
• Irregular: Second Wind (instant, short-duration revive that does not inflict an extra bout of Weakness on death and does not require player confirmation)
• Beast: Ceaseless Rage (you cannot fall below 20% HP; would-be fatal damage is instead taken in periodic ticks, accumulating, until dealing more than your HP in a single tick, at which point it finally counts against; heal for a portion of damage dealt, increased with missing HP, including the amount stored against you).
• Templar: Collective Spirit (single-GCD cast; your party can prevent a single death by splitting the overkill damage + 20% of the would-be slain party member's health as a DoT over 6 seconds among everyone else; cannot be repeated within 60s).
• Watcher: Deathward (single-GCD instant; prevent the next death within 15s on the given party member, restoring 20% HP and converting that and the overkill damage into a DoT over 6s; 3-charges, 60s recast)
• Guardian: Transference (transfer all damage that would otherwise reduce target below 20% HP from target to self)
• Profane: Sacrifice (offer an ally or self a chance to sacrifice self to raise another without Wounded status; if you die, you may still use this to request an ally to sacrifice themself for you).

Or Rend:

• Veteran: Rend Armor (increases target's damage taken)
• Irregular: Pulverize (decreases all the target's resistances, including to damage [at half the effect of Rend Armor], and maximum speed)
• Beast: Rend and Tear (your attacks debuff the enemy)
• Templar: Dismantling (party's attacks increasingly debuff the enemy)
• Watcher: Thwarting Blow (decreases the efficacy of enemy's attacks and defenses [at half the effect of Rend Armor])
• Guardian: Limb Crush (greatly decreases the efficacy of enemy's attacks)
• Profane: Blood Trade (increases target's damage taken; effect increased for your own party's attacks but party also takes some reflective damage when thereby benefiting).

[Supersnow845]

Okay if you genuinly didn’t mean that then either I can’t read or your explanations could stand to be a little clearer (I’m probably just dumb) because to me when I say “I think we shouldn’t remove the item grinds” and then a reply talks about about item and system bloat it strongly sounds like their solution to said bloat is to remove it

I’ll happily take the L but like I said even on a second read the actual intention behind a lot of your posts, including your first comment are not very clear at all to me. Sorry if I was arguing a point you didn’t make

If your point is “bozja’s systems are fine but they don’t need the inventory bloat the fragments cause” then that’s a point I agree with as long as the system that generates actions is still finite and allows things to be traded, even if that “thing” is just a number in a menu

[Shurrikhan]

If I were suggesting a removal of mob grind, I'd have referred to it as such. When I say "system bloat", that would refer to system issues whereby the way we are permitted to do things requires more time or steps by way of interface than is necessary for the given affordences (e.g., 3 menus, wait through menu-cast, move here to access ability to manipulate your own pseudo-inventory, move clunk to clunk, etc.). And when I say item bloat, I mean items taking more inventory slots than they would need to in otherwise identically affording the same incentives and customizability. Neither of those latter things have anything to do with killing or not killing mobs.

But fair enough; I'm sure I could have put more about what my suggestions expressly were not and/or saved typing for less tired hours. And responding specifically to the "fun specifically because it's grind-gated" warrant (as I largely disagree with it, but that's separate from my suggestions / neither here nor there) probably did no favors.

[Maltothoris]

Well, the only thing we can hope for at this point is that the phantom jobs for support actually have good traits ans abilities because otherwise, it would just be the offensive ones that will get picked the most. From the looks of it, phantom brd is getting their own version of expedient in it. However, it makes you wonder what the healing phantom jobs would bring.

[Kes13a]

Well, the only thing we can hope for at this point is that the phantom jobs for support actually have good traits ans abilities because otherwise, it would just be the offensive ones that will get picked the most. From the looks of it, phantom brd is getting their own version of expedient in it. However, it makes you wonder what the healing phantom jobs would bring.

heavy on the "phantom" aspect and very light on the substance side I would guess. I mean, I doubt the developers even consider healing a job any more... phantom or otherwise