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[Aeana]

This is so funny, because there was a thread yesterday about Guild Wars 2 and nearly 2 pages of how those who played it for a time didn't care for it because of the lack of the holy trinity and how it's absence created other gameplay problems

Exactly.

I'm for the Trinity because it ensures non-DPS roles, which I like. The Zerg rush nature of games like GW2 is just not fun at all.

I'm against the Trinity because 3 types of roles isn't enough. It used to be that you'd have tanks and healer and DPS, and then other kinds of classes that fit into weird utility or support categories. I miss those.

 

[IvorB]

Wouldn't really need tanks if DPS could survive direct hits. Like if the bosses only had telegraphed attacks then DPS could just dodge those and survive without a tank. Could just be a situation where tanks have way more DEF/HP so they could be DPS that can take more hits. In character action games, a glass cannon build just means high damage out, high damage in, high risk build, but it's still doable.

There are a couple of fights in this game where the boss has no aggro table and you just have to avoid them for the duration. I enjoy them but for a major boss enemy to strike a caster and not kill them in one hit would be pretty dumb.

 

[Drillary Clinton]

Exactly.

I'm for the Trinity because it ensures non-DPS roles, which I like. The Zerg rush nature of games like GW2 is just not fun at all.

I'm against the Trinity because 3 types of roles isn't enough. It used to be that you'd have tanks and healer and DPS, and then other kinds of classes that fit into weird utility or support categories. I miss those.

In theory this should be BRD/MCH

 

[studyguy]

Hybrid Jobs idea seems to have crashed and burned a while ago. Maybe in a few expansions, maybe not. I wouldn't get my hopes up.

 

[Trojita]

Can we agree that Gyr Abania mostly looks like shit, was very underwhelming as an area, and that Doma NotJapan took the spotlight?

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

Korean MMOs have long since moved towards character action style combat with a very soft and malleable "trinity" and it works very well from a combat gameplay perspective. Instead of cast bars you have telegraphed animations (often with no indicators), instead of cooldowns you have spammable moves with 1-3 second invincibility frames. Thus, tanking becomes a mechanical thing, rather than the accumulation of defensive stats to meet some threshold.

And here in the West we've married MMOs and FPS to add range and depth of motion to the MMO experience.

Blade&Souls is the best of the first type that I've played. Love the combat in that game.

This is so funny, because there was a thread yesterday about Guild Wars 2 and nearly 2 pages of how those who played it for a time didn't care for it because of the lack of the holy trinity and how it's absence created other gameplay problems

That's Guild Wars 2 though. Guild Wars 2 did it badly imo, a lot of people for whatever reason conflate Guild Wars 2 not being that good with no trinity instead of, you know, the combat just not being well executed.

Any concept including the trinity can be bad, it all depends on how it's executed.

Problem is a mix of things but it might also be a fear of upsetting people who may see more unique job traits as a "cooler" ability than their mains and claiming it unfair. Maybe they are just scared of all that.

Not really sure what you're trying to say here.

 

[Lesath]

Yeah why would any creature of reasonable intelligence ignore the enemies hurting them the most in favour of attacking the guy waving his arms in front of them saying: ignore them please! Over here!

It's not a matter of hitting the one in the dress, it's the matter of the asshole in plate doing everything in his or her power (tripping, stunning, bashing the back of your head) to intercept you from hitting the one in the dress.

Blade&Souls is the best of the first type that I've played. Love the combat in that game.



That's Guild Wars 2 though. Guild Wars 2 did it badly imo, a lot of people for whatever reason conflate Guild Wars 2 not being that good with no trinity instead of, you know, the combat just not being well executed.

Any concept including the trinity can be bad, it all depends on how it's executed.

Sure...but as it stands there really is no mainstream MMO that has executed the "lack of trinity" thing well.

 

[Anoregon]

Can we agree that Gyr Abania mostly looks like shit, was very underwhelming as an area, and that Doma NotJapan took the spotlight?

I was pretty much immediately underwhelmed when I hit 60 and started Stormblood content due to this, and was very happy when I set sale for Othard.

 

[Guess Who]

The Fringes is beautiful, but The Peaks and The Lochs are fairly boring.

 

[Aeana]

Yeah why would any creature of reasonable intelligence ignore the enemies hurting them the most in favour of attacking the guy waving his arms in front of them saying: ignore them please! Over here!

The rules of reality work very hard to make video games boring or not fun. It's a good thing we don't have to adhere to them.

 

[kromeo]

Fringes and Peaks for the most part just look like more Thanalan, which was already the most boring part of the game

 

[Trojita]

The Fringes is beautiful, but The Peaks and The Lochs are fairly boring.

The palace itself is beautiful compared to everything else, but you are barely there at all.

 

[Foxxsoxx]

Can we agree that Gyr Abania mostly looks like shit, was very underwhelming as an area, and that Doma NotJapan took the spotlight?

Yeah some areas look good but the desert parts have absolutely no color to them.

It can't be that difficult to add color to the environment or buildings around it. The Doma zones look great though.

 

[studyguy]

Give Ala Migho back to the Garleans, let them keep it. We'll trade for Doma instead thx.

 

[Kent]

Regarding tanks and accessories, I had this idea that is a bit massive of an overhaul, but humor me, I think it might be at least worth exploring as an itemization design concept:

Remove primary stats from right-side accessories.

Replace that primary stat with a higher-weighted amount of a specific secondary stat depending on the role: Tenacity for tanks, Piety for healers, Spell Speed for casters, Skill Speed for ranged+NIN, Critical for melee (sans NIN). These stats can still be on other roles' accessories where compatible (like spell speed can still roll on healer accessories), just they get a "big stat" of a specific kind.

I realize this is a significant stat rework (and would also require some reworking on statting on left-side gear as well, for sure), but we're also talking about a more permanent solution to a problem - instead of simply a band-aid like the STR+VIT damage calculation for tanks - which is going to need to be a major thing to be fixed anyway.

 

[Haly]

I'm interested in seeing what the Near East is like. If the Far East is Asia and Abania is desert Scotts, will be Near East be turkey/persia?

 

[iammeiam]

I honestly would expect the game's longer-term design to end up being everyone becomes more of a DPS with bonus features than anything; their lack of a PTR and general inability to get a good read on what players will actually do with the tools they give us means they're going to have to get more and more conservative and narrow with time.

Would increasing the damage mitigation given my Tenacity help curb some of the issues tanks are experiencing?

So the fundamental problem is that mitigation and more HP alone don't do anything; the dividing line between "useful mitigation" and "pointless mitigation" is, essentially, if it saves the healer a cast or turns something that would be a one-shot into not a one-shot.

If a boss attack does 9,000 damage to a tank, and they stack 1,000 secondary points of Tenacity, they get a slightly-below-5% boost to their damage and a slightly-below-5% reduction in the damage they take (as far as I've seen it doesn't boost actual healing received aside from self-heals). So instead of taking 9,000 damage from that hit, they take 8,550. Yes, the tank took less, but I'm probably going to heal both situations the exact same way. If I handle both the exact same way, my preference would be for the tank to take those 1,000 points and figure out how to turn them into Direct Hit to get a 6.67% damage boost instead of 5%-ish. It's not huge, but it will directly contribute to the thing dying faster.

In theory there's a crossover point, where tanks could be passively mitigating enough with Tenacity to save me actual heal casts and thus be benefitting everyone, but it'd have to be a pretty substantial boost with the way HoTs and such work in the game.

I'd honestly be totally fine with them just making Tenacity a god-tier secondary since they've made it impossible to meld onto non-tank gear. Overweight the hell out of it, give it strong damage boosting and mitigation properties, and let it cover for the missing STR on accessories. It would be a borderline broken most-important-secondary-ever for tanks, and they could just auto put it on accessories. But it should still heavily impact tank outgoing damage, because for the most part a consistent boost to outgoing damage is going to outweigh saving a healer two or three GCDs in a 10 minute fight.

 

[Frumix]

Wait a minute.....

Ninjas in Kugane Castle jump out and put on Kiss of the Viper.
Does make one wonder if job changes were hella last minute after all content was done.

 

[Akuun]

deleted

 

[Squishy3]

Second half of Fringes and the Peaks are really good, and I appreciate The Lochs, but the first part sucks. And the issue was exacerbated due to the fact you were stuck there if you didn't get through Raubahn and Pipin immediately.

I also think The Lochs is going to be our "Revenant's Toll/Idyllshire" of the expansion, as there's already NPCs out and about beginning the rebuilding process in the zone after finishing the story.

 

[studyguy]

Seriously everything they've done roadblocks them:

They create items based on a linear equation of progression like WoW. Things don't significantly diverge because everything is balanced to raise by a certain % on a set formula.

Damage output by enemies in savage content is scaled to the formula, I'd imagine. Creating custom vit accessories might work, but from the sound of it, they hate going off whatever set pattern they have, would have to work to adjust everything around other jobs and this specific tank scaling vit/str hybrid. Have to rework damage calculations in the future to work around tanks having less HP if they neuter it so it gives less vit but some str.

Like I seriously wouldn't be surprised if they just scale up enmity as needed per patch this entire expac and leave tanks in the wind. Which would be hilarious to see new tanks getting some fucking nutso multiplier on content.

 

[docbon]

Can we agree that Gyr Abania mostly looks like shit, was very underwhelming as an area, and that Doma NotJapan took the spotlight?

That moment when you dive into the lake and see the enormous underwater ruins utilizing one single texture.

Or when you get into the last solo instance and realize that they forgot to add any shadows. (checked my settings for this one because I thought something was wrong on my end)

 

[Trojita]

Anime was a mistake.

 

[studyguy]

Also I somehow didn't know the Yawn (the omega hole) was even there till after omega started. I guess I missed both instances it was shown in MSQ and overlooked it while searching around. No fucking clue wtf happened.

 

[Frumix]

Also I somehow didn't know the Yawn (the omega hole) was even there till after omega started. I guess I missed both instances it was shown in MSQ and overlooked it while searching around. No fucking clue wtf happened.

Very appropriate!

 

[EndcatOmega]

I liked the Gyr Abania areas better than NotJapan and Not...Philippines? Not sure what the Ruby Sea was going for.

NotMongolia was the real winner.

 

[Haly]

Also I somehow didn't know the Yawn (the omega hole) was even there till after omega started. I guess I missed both instances it was shown in MSQ and overlooked it while searching around. No fucking clue wtf happened.

I knew it was there because I tried to cloudfish in it.

Not sure what the Ruby Sea was going for.

Ruby Seas is like Philippines + Okinawa.

 

[Trojita]

Second half of Fringes and the Peaks are really good, and I appreciate The Lochs, but the first part sucks. And the issue was exacerbated due to the fact you were stuck there if you didn't get through Raubahn and Pipin immediately.

I also think The Lochs is going to be our "Revenant's Toll/Idyllshire" of the expansion, as there's already NPCs out and about beginning the rebuilding process in the zone after finishing the story.

Isn't that going to be Rhalgr's Reach?

That moment when you dive into the lake and see the enormous underwater ruins utilizing one single texture.

Or when you get into the last solo instance and realize that they forgot to add any shadows. (checked my settings for this one because I thought something was wrong on my end)

At first I was in awe at the city submerged, but then immediately asked what the fuck is the point of doing even that much work to put it there.

 

[Tanston]

Can we agree that Gyr Abania mostly looks like shit, was very underwhelming as an area, and that Doma NotJapan took the spotlight?

I'm onboard with that. In the Doma half of the xpack just wandering around and exploring was very compelling. The whole other half of the xpack is brown rocks.

 

[EndcatOmega]

Ruby Seas is like Philippines + Okinawa.

Where's our Pork Adobo recipe then!

 

[RK9039]

Anime was a mistake.

ffs

 

[Style]

The issue isn't the tank/healer/dps split, but that they aren't allowing for flexibility and hybrids. Red Mage should have been able to queue as healer, Bard as a healer (rename the role to support), Samurai and Ninja as tanks. That would have been way healthier for queues. But it's too late for that now that every class is completely build around their role and would require a major rework.

 

[studyguy]

Anime was a mistake.

Delete Balmung

 

[Lunafreya Nox Fleuret]

I'm onboard with that. In the Doma half of the xpack just wandering around and exploring was very compelling. The whole other half of the xpack is brown rocks.

Ehhhhhh, Doma was great and all but Gyr Abania is very good in the end. I wouldn't say the rest is bland.

 

[djplaeskool]

Delete Balmung

lmao
I landed in one of those RP duties as a DF fill-in yesterday.
Having done some heavy RP in the 1.x and ARR days, I had little recourse but to join in the fun.
Haukke Manor (Hard) took an extra 20 minutes to finish, but I had a blast.

How was the tanking in TERA?

Lancer in TERA was fun as hell mostly due to the action nature of the game.
There's an very extreme idea of survivability baked into the game where solid execution as a tank means you may take little to perhaps no damage at all.

 

[Brazil]

Anime was a mistake.

Filth.

 

[dimb]

Is it really just a MMO thing when the same concept exists in strategy games, RTS, MOBAs, and even Overwatch? People like roles they can identify with gameplay-wise. Some people like to heal. Some people like to tank. Some people like to just hit stuff.

There is no trinity in RTS or MOBA. MOBA support is focused on utility/CC/vision, and operating with low income. FFXIV is in an old school MMO mindset where aggro is still a concept. Lots of other MMORPGs pivoted away from tanks worrying about aggro tables and shifted to a playstyle that is almost entirely focused on damage mitigation and mob positioning. XIV also has very few defensive cooldowns for non-tanks relative to other MMOs so losing aggro on something can be really punishing. It pushes tanks into a babysitter mindset.

 

[TheMrPliskin]

Anime was a mistake.

The two Screenshot saved messages really bring it together.

 

[Haly]

The real problem here, as it always was, even back in 1.0, is that FFXIV as a game is just not forward thinking and lags behind the "scene" by some 5 to 10 years. There is a thing it does well and it's creating that FF experience but beyond that the game is kind of like your grandfather who still types "google.com" into Chrome's address bar, and only after you spent years convincing him to stop using Yahoo.

 

[Trojita]

The real problem here, as it always was, even back in 1.0, is that FFXIV as a game is just not forward thinking and lags behind the "scene" by some 5 to 10 years.

Praise Tanaka

 

[studyguy]

Praise Tanaka

Praise be, he helps those who help themselves... Maybe.

 

[Bebpo]

I'm against the Trinity because 3 types of roles isn't enough. It used to be that you'd have tanks and healer and DPS, and then other kinds of classes that fit into weird utility or support categories. I miss those.

1 tank, 1 healer, 1 dps, 1 utility would be nice. I play NIN and it's basically 1/3rd utility and I'd be fine losing DPS and adding more utility effects since

Spoiler

it actually lets you play a little worse (less stressful) since you just set up the utility for others and let them deal with everything.

Bard obviously should be a utility job.

 

[djplaeskool]

The real problem here, as it always was, even back in 1.0, is that FFXIV as a game is just not forward thinking and lags behind the "scene" by some 5 to 10 years. There is a thing it does well and it's recreating that FF experience but beyond that the game is kind of like your grandfather who still types "google.com" into Chrome's address bar, and only after you spent years convincing him to stop using Yahoo.

Ehh, I feel it's a bit much to label a game as 'regressive' due to a reliance on traditional player archetypes. That lack of FF tradition was one of the accepted failure points of 1.x.

 

[iammeiam]

I keep waiting for the documentary or interview that will dig into the most undocumented part of ARR--whatever shift happened to make them go less risky with the expansions instead of more. They specifically added SMN/SCH with a shared base class for ARR. They talked about needing to be conservative while trying to establish a good name for the game, but having more options when they hit expansion.

But at some point they decided it was not going to work and just sort of slammed things into reverse. It's an interesting evolution they've gone through, and I'd be curious how it came about and what breaking points they had, if any, that led them to their current "choice is the enemy!" design style.

 

[Berordn]

I actually would love to see support fleshed out a lot more, though I suspect at this point it's a little difficult since so much of the old, still supported content is expecting certain archetypes to still exist.

I've ditched WHM for AST lately and as much as I love it, too often in group content it feels like I'm just a WHM who plays cards instead of casting Stone. If they felt like dialing the healing down and giving more buffs, I'd be all for it.

 

[Trojita]

I keep waiting for the documentary or interview that will dig into the most undocumented part of ARR--whatever shift happened to make them go less risky with the expansions instead of more. They specifically added SMN/SCH with a shared base class for ARR. They talked about needing to be conservative while trying to establish a good name for the game, but having more options when they hit expansion.

But at some point they decided it was not going to work and just sort of slammed things into reverse. It's an interesting evolution they've gone through, and I'd be curious how it came about and what breaking points they had, if any, that led them to their current "choice is the enemy!" design style.

Somewhere between the addition of Rogue-> Ninja and then Dark Knight,Astrologian caused them to reevaluate things, including long standing remnants of 1.0, and decide to go a different path.

 

[Frumix]

I keep waiting for the documentary or interview that will dig into the most undocumented part of ARR--whatever shift happened to make them go less risky with the expansions instead of more. They specifically added SMN/SCH with a shared base class for ARR. They talked about needing to be conservative while trying to establish a good name for the game, but having more options when they hit expansion.

But at some point they decided it was not going to work and just sort of slammed things into reverse. It's an interesting evolution they've gone through, and I'd be curious how it came about and what breaking points they had, if any, that led them to their current "choice is the enemy!" design style.

I get a feeling people who make those decisions generally sit behind the camera pointing guns at the interviewees

 

[Aeana]

I actually would love to see support fleshed out a lot more, though I suspect at this point it's a little difficult since so much of the old, still supported content is expecting certain archetypes to still exist.

I've ditched WHM for AST lately and as much as I love it, too often in group content it feels like I'm just a WHM who plays cards instead of casting Stone. If they felt like dialing the healing down and giving more buffs, I'd be all for it.

I think it would be interesting if card effects were modified by stance. Right now, nocturnal and diurnal stance don't factor into enough abilities I think, and that might be a really interesting way to make them more interesting.

 

[studyguy]

1.X for all its failing still had some horizontal progression up to the end with the unique stats like REGEN for Cover, Increased Jump Dmg, etc on individual armor pieces.

The only thing you need to point to in terms of design philosophy is that of whatever formula they use to build content around in scaling. It's the same for WoW, it's the same for most any themepark MMO. No need for thought in equipment. No need for non-standardized roles. Eventually we'll get to hybrid-ish jobs I guess (or as close to hybridish as we can), but as it stands it feels like everything they build ARR upon is way too rigid to offer the kind of flexibility they discussed early on with job branches, hybrid roles, etc.

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

I love the combat system in TERA, but the rest of the game was pretty bad. I always felt that FFXIV + TERA's combat system would be the perfect MMO.

I had the same thought. FFXIV + cut out its combat + Add TERA or Blade & Soul combat and you got a powerful match.