How games can have less scripted encounters

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Originally Posted by Inputnamehere

The situation is getting outta control when they revamped all the old content to promote Trust system--by literally removing *all* mechanics that their scripted bots can't handle. Now every instance is pull stuff——boss(stack spread stack)——pull more stuff, repeat.
Yeah the Trust mode is helpful but do they really need to destroy the already limited "fun" plays they designed?

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it is easy to program a trust system to act like this:

if boss do x: do y

just a simple thinking and reaction time based fights that what we need

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Originally Posted by Tunda

1- add variants that can be manipulated

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ngl i would like this -- up until i remember than one true way would emerge, and if you don't use that single outcome youre seen as total effin idiot

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Originally Posted by Tunda

2- encounters should have decision making based on the current situation

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dont they already? not all the players are bots. yet.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

3- rage mechanic is always scripted but with a twist.. it can manipulate variants like boss attack speed been increase, boss move in unpredicted way.. boss can change his mode between being defensive or offensive based on situation.

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one single highly pursied variaton would rule here too. more mods and pc player preference to make it happen as oftn as possible.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

4- taking advantage of some jobs skills to trigger more unpredictable boss behavior.

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job a's trigger sux: job a ostracised out of pf and most statics
job b's trigger is "right one": most everyone wont enter the raid with job b

not hating your ideas, i upvoted you and i would kinda like the world where stuff like above was possible and enjoyable.
i am just very very sure ff14 is not that game.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

The most obvious reason why FF14's fights feels stiff compared to WoW's is that the boss always returns to the middle of the room to stand there and cast. You don't get WoW esque fights where the tank ia dragging the boss around the room as the boss hurls lava and the room slowly fills up with lava until there is little space to stand.

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You're making miss Sohm Al Hard's Lava Scorpion.

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Originally Posted by Inputnamehere

The situation is getting outta control when they revamped all the old content to promote Trust system--by literally removing *all* mechanics that their scripted bots can't handle. Now every instance is pull stuff——boss(stack spread stack)——pull more stuff, repeat.
Yeah the Trust mode is helpful but do they really need to destroy the already limited "fun" plays they designed?

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I hear this complaint keenly, I feel the same way about how they've largely gone about reworking duties to fit Duty Support. Remembering especially that their goal was to finish redesigning through StB in EW, which they achieved.

But there's some hope, they put in a mechanic like the Trouble Bubbles in 95 dungeon's first boss; the trusts there follow a scripted movement pattern but since the player isn't beholden to it it can mess up their perfect play and cause them to get pelted by bubbles. Their solution to this was to make the NPCs largely immune to the damage (and vuln) from failing that mechanic, so they're at least willing to cheat a little bit for the NPCs to include something that wouldn't have been done between ShB and EW.

Doesn't exactly mean we'll see a return of e.g. interacting with objects, unusual enmity rules, avoiding certain targets, positioning enemies or using stuns and interrupts though.

Lava Scorpion's a great fight. Even has considerable tank damage. It barely lives long enough due ilvl, potency creep and direct hit, though.

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Originally Posted by Inputnamehere

The situation is getting outta control when they revamped all the old content to promote Trust system--by literally removing *all* mechanics that their scripted bots can't handle. Now every instance is pull stuff——boss(stack spread stack)——pull more stuff, repeat.
Yeah the Trust mode is helpful but do they really need to destroy the already limited "fun" plays they designed?

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Technically, they made all the old content harder, but more predictable. Because if you play the old content with trusts (or squads) it will take longer to do than with a group of BiS geared players. That said, what they in effect did was make two versions of every dungeon. There is the "play with other players" version which is easier, and the "play with NPC's" which is harder because the NPC script runs in lock step with the fight.


I'll always be an advocate to not let RNG decide game mechanics, only values. If the game does the equivalent of a d20 roll, and keeps rolling 1's, then it should STILL be doing the mechanic , just at a weak (Eg miss) value. Where as if it rolls a crit three times, then yes, there is a good possibility of wiping to that mechanic if the healer doesn't immediately heal right after each hit.

What you don't want is the boss script to look like this:

Code:

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BossLoopNoRNG()
{
if(myHP = 100%){ RollForFunction(5)}
if(myHP < 100% && myHP >50%){ RollForFunction(4)}
if(myHP < 50% && myHP >25%){ RollForFunction(3)}
if(myHP < 25% && myHP >0%){ RollForFunction(2)}
if(PartyHasNoHealers){RollForFunction(1)}
}

BossLoopIsRNG()
{
if(myHP = 100%){ RollForFunction(5)}
RollForFunction(Math.Random(5)* (5 - 2) + 2)
if(PartyHasNoHealers){RollForFunction(1)}
}


RollForFunction(n)
{
switch(n)
5:
DoAOE()
4:
DoTankBuster()
3:
DoKnockback()
2:
DoBleed()
break
1:
DoEnrage()
default:
AutoAttack()

return()
}

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In English, "BossLoopIsRNG" is basically picking a number between 2 and 5 after the initial opening AOE. Which is Bleed, Knockback, Tankbuster. And it's just picking one of those as the START of the loop. The switch statement automatically continues to the next step and then drops out before the Enrage.

This would be fine, except that it's only skipping a step at random, rather than shuffling the deck when it gets to the end.

Realistically, you want the entire phase to go in order, but you want the "deck shuffled". so that you see ALL the steps, and it repeats in the same order until it gets to the next phase. If you fail, and restart the fight, it will re-shuffle the deck again.

But it doesn't "pick steps" to do at random like the code above, as all it does is make it hard to learn.

If a boss has four phases, then you should expect the same pattern until the end of the phase.

But again, as I've said, you do not want "just random" for boss fights, because that instead makes the fight undeterministic. You can't "do the fight correctly" at all, you can only brute force your way through it.

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Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

The most obvious reason why FF14's fights feels stiff compared to WoW's is that the boss always returns to the middle of the room to stand there and cast. You don't get WoW esque fights where the tank ia dragging the boss around the room as the boss hurls lava and the room slowly fills up with lava until there is little space to stand.

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We do have a similar mechanic to the latter where portions of the arena get destroyed to reduce the room the party has to use.

But I agree with you in general. We've always got a very flat circle or square to work with (barring mid fight changes). There is extremely little variety in how encounter spaces are designed (E12 is the only one that comes to mind immediately) and the environments tend to get stale in appearance. Do we really need to have almost every fight on a dance floor?

There are pros and cons for both styles of raid design but ironically for a game that was so bad when it came to story telling, WoW did a much better job of creating immersion with its raid environments. Compare any of the raids in FFXIV with something like Siege of Orgrimmar. As good or bad as individual encounters might be, they don't add up to the feeling created by having to force your way through a heavily fortified and defended city. It's just a shame that WoW didn't add in shortcuts direct to boss room to use after wipes (or did they finally after Legion).

We have to get these things to implement randomeness to fights:

1- 2 min window should be scripted
2- shuffle mechanic based on specific criteria
3- moment when boss move to high dps member and focus on them doing avoidable mechanic and tank have the ability to do mini game to knockout boss

That will make tank like a real savior of the team not just a hitting bag

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Originally Posted by Tunda

We have to get these things to implement randomeness to fights:

1- 2 min window should be scripted
2- shuffle mechanic based on specific criteria
3- moment when boss move to high dps member and focus on them doing avoidable mechanic and tank have the ability to do mini game to knockout boss

That will make tank like a real savior of the team not just a hitting bag

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1. Why? You're trying to get rid of it, remember?
2. Just a matter of time till players figure out these "Criteria" and tweak the fight by setting up those "Criteria", this is called seed-manipulation in most speedruns because they know the exact sequence that's going to happen
3. You mean like the Susano fight? What's the point, this is just another scripted phase then.

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

1. Why? You're trying to get rid of it, remember?
2. Just a matter of time till players figure out these "Criteria" and tweak the fight by setting up those "Criteria", this is called seed-manipulation in most speedruns because they know the exact sequence that's going to happen
3. You mean like the Susano fight? What's the point, this is just another scripted phase then.

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Yes thank you.. understanding the boss is a skill that should be learned.. players should be able to understand those criteria after many many many fights.. let people start to analyze fights and act upon it not all bosses should have same mindset or way to fight

Rage mechanic shouldn't be scripted

As I said unpredicted movement and attacks that can be randomize from set of attacks that is assigned to boss

Scripted but randomized and have some variants that can be randomized like who is boss targeting and why based on boss hp or boss set up for next mechanic

once again the casual wants to give ideas to make gameplay better, kind of gameplay that they will never play.