Your idea of a challenge.

[Seriha]

While i agree, I must ask. What does pose a challenge to you?

While I'm sure people would just brush it off as gimmicks, I'm mainly looking at it as various objectives within a fight other than just taking a mob's HP to zero.

Let's say there's a really, really, really effin' big Ironclad mob, like one foot is the size of a tower. Players could technically enter the inside of the mob, but would possibly face environmental hazards like electrical currents or moving pistons on top of possible internal security mechanisms. Now, you'd want a small party on the outside to be keeping this NM busy since it'd otherwise be able to focus more on ousting intruders. Those on the inside, however, could seek out its power source, whatever "brain" it has, and other possible objectives with the interior itself being randomized enough that every fight can be new enough.

None of this should require an exceptionally rigid party structure like CoP did, but just something sensibly balanced like a tank, healer, a couple DDs, then some support.

As much as some people have creamed their pants over CoP's airship fights, I actually felt they were pretty lame. We had no "feeling" like were in air, but instead it was just your usual stationary battlefield with a pretty background. Now, what if you introduced turbulence, or a means to knock the mob off and win more easily? Protect the engines? Fend off other airborne attackers? Use your imagination.

In a nutshell, I'm seeking more complex fights, not necessarily more difficult.

[Arlan]

While I'm sure people would just brush it off as gimmicks, I'm mainly looking at it as various objectives within a fight other than just taking a mob's HP to zero.

Let's say there's a really, really, really effin' big Ironclad mob, like one foot is the size of a tower. Players could technically enter the inside of the mob, but would possibly face environmental hazards like electrical currents or moving pistons on top of possible internal security mechanisms. Now, you'd want a small party on the outside to be keeping this NM busy since it'd otherwise be able to focus more on ousting intruders. Those on the inside, however, could seek out its power source, whatever "brain" it has, and other possible objectives with the interior itself being randomized enough that every fight can be new enough.

None of this should require an exceptionally rigid party structure like CoP did, but just something sensibly balanced like a tank, healer, a couple DDs, then some support.

As much as some people have creamed their pants over CoP's airship fights, I actually felt they were pretty lame. We had no "feeling" like were in air, but instead it was just your usual stationary battlefield with a pretty background. Now, what if you introduced turbulence, or a means to knock the mob off and win more easily? Protect the engines? Fend off other airborne attackers? Use your imagination.

In a nutshell, I'm seeking more complex fights, not necessarily more difficult.

I actually like this idea...
Making the environmental an important part of strategy within a fight would make the game even more fun.

Example: Fighting a giant Turtle NM Monster, and the monster hits hard, you can have a NIN kite the Turtle while the DDs have to attack 3 special Switches to activate a canon Beam, The NIN needs to guide the NM near the cannon so the beam hits the NM. When the NM gets hit by the beam, The Turtle NM falls on its back, struggling to get up, and DDs can get the GREEN LIGHT to attack the NM while it trys to get up slowly. Then Repeat for 5-10 times. Also, if the NIN gets hit by the Cannon beam by mistake while trying to guide NM to the cannon beam, It will ONE SHOT the player that is in the way of the beam. That way NIN kiting the Turtle NM needs to not only watch out for the NM but also watch out not to get killed by the beam his trying to guide the NM.

HA!
Tell me what you guys think of that! =) That sounds like a fun Strategy imo.

[Akujima]

In a nutshell, I'm seeking more complex fights, not necessarily more difficult.

Seriha has got it right, except I'd say add both the complexity and difficulty. Don't give us one and sacrifice the other. More situations that deal with the environment and more complex mob reactions.

Tank and Spank gets extremely boring after awhile.

[Leonlionheart]

Seriha has got it right, except I'd say add both the complexity and difficulty. Don't give us one and sacrifice the other. More situations that deal with the environment and more complex mob reactions.

Tank and Spank gets extremely boring after awhile.

well considering there are only 3 real methods of killing anything in an RPG

tank and spank
zerg
kite

i don't see what else they could possibly do

[Akujima]

well considering there are only 3 real methods of killing anything in an RPG

tank and spank
zerg
kite

i don't see what else they could possibly do

Wrong. You've obviously never played World of Warcraft. And yes I'll keep quoting it because it has very dynamic fight sequences, and nobody complained about how difficult they were. They sucked it up and realized they needed to work as a team to down the boss.

Magtheridons, Hydross and Lurker you did NOT tank and spank, you could not kite, and could NOT zerg. There was a specific strategy used to down each of those bosses. Grull the Dragonkiller and High King Maulgar, were also very dynamic situations. They did involve tanking and spanking to some extent, but that's not ALL the focus was on.

And DD in WoW had the toughest job -> They had to watch hate. Why? Because if the boss turned and started hitting them, they would be pushing up daises, lowering their overall DPS.

EDIT: It's time to face the facts, and learn from the pro's. Take from their successful concepts/idea's and expand on them.

[Karbuncle]

EDIT: It's time to face the facts, and learn from the pro's. Take from their successful concepts/idea's and expand on them.

Every game is has taken something from other games, this is very true, and it works, to an extent.

But at the same time, Copying WoW Doesn't really work well. I mean, Look at the dozens of "WoW Clone" MMOs released lately. Almost all of them die withing weeks/months.

You need to borrow some ideas, But you need to have unique aspects too. also, the hate system works different in WoW though yah? Watching hate in FFXI is nearly impossible, If the fight lasts more than 3 minutes, Every good DD will be at capped hate. Its a flaw in the hate design, not the players really, most DD jobs don't have any form of hate shedding outside of well, Dying. Because of CE (Enmity that stays on you until you take damage).

WoW is also a multi-bil' dollar MMO, FFXI is not. WoW Has Million of subscribers, FFXI Does not. So its safe to assume WoW has a much much more... working? Dev team. They probably have much more Resources than FFXI right now.

So making really in-depth intensive fights is easier for the WoW DEV Team, They have more resources and time. So getting the kind of in-depth fight in FFXI like say, Grull you pointed out, Would be really difficult because of the constraints on the DEV Team right now.

Events like Salvage back in the "prime" show that given the time they can make in-depth Events. The amount of things you had to do correctly to progress was astonishing. Like killing the slimes without spikes on their heads to get to the rampart, Things like that.

Not saying i don't want in-depth fights, I'm only saying its rather difficult to pull off now :|

[Akujima]

But at the same time, Copying WoW Doesn't really work well. I mean, Look at the dozens of "WoW Clone" MMOs released lately. Almost all of them die withing weeks/months.

Yes. That's because they're retarded and literally copy WoW down to the GUI.

Events like Salvage back in the "prime" show that given the time they can make in-depth Events. The amount of things you had to do correctly to progress was astonishing. Like killing the slimes without spikes on their heads to get to the rampart, Things like that.

Not saying i don't want in-depth fights, I'm only saying its rather difficult to pull off now :|

Well even if they can't add all the environmental effects, there should still be a healthy level of "Gear Checks" and boss battles can be dynamic by just using different abilities more often. Combine those abilities together, have the boss use them at random intervals and test out the gameplay mechanics thoughtfully before releasing the content. Sure it would take longer, but the end result would be more fulfilling content that lasts longer.


EXAMPLE: Dragon Type~ NM

Phase 1: On the ground.
- The Dragon is highly susceptible to Melee Damage, but is Resistant to Magic and Ranged Attacks.
- The Dragon dishes out high Melee Damage and Enfeebles to the Front Line Jobs.
- The Melee and Tank have their work cut out for them in this stage. Melee needs to do damage quick, but not pull hate off the Tank and die. The Tank needs keep hate from the Melee so that they don't pull hate and get KO'd.

Phase 2: Standing on Hind Legs, Wings Glowing.
- The Dragon is highly resistant to Ranged Attacks and Melee Attacks, but Magic cures the Dragon or is reflected back to the caster.
- The Dragon deals incredible high AoE damage that targets a single person (hopefully the tank)
- The Melee have to get out of range quick, to avoid being KO'd by it's heavy AoE.
- The Healers have their work cut out for them in this phase. They have to make sure the Tank stays alive and is topped off to survive his massive beatings.
- The Mages need to HOLD nukes, so that the Dragon won't get healed/reflect damage to them. And possibly help out with cures and removing status effects~

Phase 3: Flying in the Air
- The Dragon is highly susceptible to Ranged Attacks and Magic Damage
- The Dragon dishes out Ranged AoE Attacks on random targets with no enmity table.
- The Entire Alliance would have to spread out, in order for their to be less damage taken as a whole. But not too far from the healers, so that they can still heal you.
- The Ranged Attackers and Mages get to work and blast him hard in this Phase.
- The Tanks and Melee position themselves so that if they get hit with an AoE blast from above, its not near other BUSY members.

Random Time rotation of Phases.

Phase 1: lasts 3 minutes
Phase 3: lasts 5 minutes ======= Section 1
Phase 2: lasts 1 minute

Phase 3: lasts 1 minute
Phase 2: lasts 3 minutes ======= Section 2
Phase 1: lasts 1 minute

Phase 2: lasts 5 minutes
Phase 3: lasts 3 minutes ======= Section 3
Phase 1: lasts 5 minutes

You can mix and match each section, and there would be countless possibilities for the Phases to be random each and every battle.

Adding this sort of extreme dynamics, would crank up the difficulty and make the fight rely heavily on focus, teamwork and coordination. Rather than it being just solely based on gear/stats/equipment.

[Duelle]

Every game is has taken something from other games, this is very true, and it works, to an extent.

But at the same time, Copying WoW Doesn't really work well. I mean, Look at the dozens of "WoW Clone" MMOs released lately. Almost all of them die withing weeks/months.

There's a huge difference between what the clone MMOs copy from WoW and WoW's raid content. Most just copy the user-friendliness of the UI and questing system. It kinda ends there, really.

I can understand the thing about dev time and limitations of FFXI's game engine. You can't do Heigan the Unclean's encounter in FFXI because player movement is very limited. Flame Leviathan would be impossible seeing that there are no vehicle mechanics in FFXI as well. You could probably do a mimic of C'thun from AQ40, provided you have safeguards in place to keep players from dying due to lag at the beginning of the phase inside the stomach (since C'thun's stomach acid deals nature damage to you the whole time you're there). Yogg-saron would probably work too...well, barring the tentacles since the game engine doesn't support multi-targetting. No Malygos because of lack of vehicle mechanics (not to mention the jump button is used during the encounter to control the floating platforms), and lag would be killer on a copy of the Lich King encounter (I can see people missing Quake during phase transitions due to lag and falling to their deaths). Sarth 3D would probably work, provided damage is tuned to allow the tank to actually survive damage to allow the healers to heal the alliance (as Sarth 3D is basically 3 tanks and the whole raid tanking damage at the same time).

Damn it, Aku. You're making me miss WoW raiding. >:O

[Akujima]

Damn it, Aku. You're making me miss WoW raiding. >:O

It was epic I know. The biggest complaint I hear about WoW is the grind in Lvling Up, which isn't all that bad.

PS. I agree with your RDM sig comment~ Also wth don't Ninja's throw shuriken? -_- lol... Final Fantasy is straying too far from its roots.

[Karbuncle]

(Dont wanna quote to big)

In a nutshell, I'm seeking more complex fights, not necessarily more difficult.

Those are great ideas, But they fit more into a Real-time Single Player RPG or FPS tbh. That kind of in-depth fight would be nearly impossible for FFXI. Mostly due to how FFXI plays.

-----

Though, on the topic of the Iron Giant, It sounds really fun, but it also sounds more like you want an Epic fight close ot "Shadw of the Colossus". I.E Taking down a huge foe, crawling through (on) its body to reach the brain (Rune spot). This kind of thing would also be hard in FFXI, however, i Could see a possibility.

Imagine it more like Sandworm. You fight this Large Iron-Giant, Eventually, It draws you inside its body. You then enter a Salvage-like "Nyzul" area inside the iron Giant, where you perform objectives to reach the "brain", Which could be guarded by a strong boss.

So in essence, You'd progress through the Iron Giants body to reach the top and defeat the guardian/controller. On the way you could run into objectives like "Shut down pistons" Which could lower the "bosses" Attack speed, or they could be side-objectives, Maybe "Activate xxx switch" as a side objective, that would hinder the "brains/boss's" Casting time.

Basically, Objective based floors (like Nyzul), with a big boss at the end, and objectives throughout the "Body" That would hinder the final boss or weaken him (Similar to some CoP Dynamis stuff). This would be the most realistic way to implement your fight.

The "boss" At the end could be a unique "Iron Giant head" model too. Drops could be handled like Voidwatch too. After the NM Dies, a Chest spawns where each person gets a different reward (I liked that system...)