Do you consider fun to memorize fights?

Bottom Line - If memory is not a gaming skill then why is only 5% of server populations beating Titan Extreme?

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Originally Posted by Fendred

Any well designed boss fight worth its salt is going to have patterns for players to recognize and exploit because that is the basis of good encounter design. A boss that switches tactics is merely changing his attack pattern, which in turn is a pattern that players can recognize. If I do action x, he will start doing x, y, z, but he will do a, b, c if I do something else.

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Disagree. Knowing exactly what each boss is going to do in what order and how to combat it makes for a simplistic and not overly exciting fight. My definition of "good encounter design" would vary greatly from yours.

Sorry random does not mean hard.
In fact random means.. random. Sometimes hard, sometimes very easy! I loved in rift pulling bosses until they happen to not do some combination of impossible mechanics, real challenging.
Now if you mean the order of scripted events should be slightly more random within doable conditions... ok? Still would be very easy if you think otherwise.... you are bad.

Seriously you don't need to memorize any of the fights to do them. (besides maybe the general idea of phases on twintania (not the order within each phase)
I certainly didn't memorize any of them on my, and my groups, first kills.
Extreme titan took 3 pulls. So.... if you think we memorized it in 3 pulls...... make more excuses for your being bad.

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Originally Posted by Dedayius

The trouble with set patterns from bosses is that SE makes them all one shot or nearly one shot you. The idea being that once you have memorized the fight, there is no challenge because you can avoid all damage. It makes the fights very boring once you get over that initial hill.

Personally, I think this is poor design and would much prefer a more random rotation with more room for error. This would require the removal of one shot mechanics that SE loves so much though so I sincerely doubt it will ever happen.

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this , the problem with ffxiv bosses is that are hard the first some trys , after u learned every step is a snoozefest....the only thing that make this bosses interesting are the lag spikes :P.....im gonna dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee lag spike of death!!!!!

Static pattern on bosses are BORING....u know what will happen the whole battle . now the boss does that...and after that will do that...../loop

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Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

Bottom Line - If memory is not a gaming skill then why is only 5% of server populations beating Titan Extreme?

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because no one has the patience to go more than two wipes before a rage quit.

I see lot of ppl saying they don't memorize the battles, you are wrong, what you are experiencing is experience through repetition, you're unconsciously memorizing the battle, that's why it feels so boring, the proof is that you can't win any of the hard battles on the first try, for exanple, there are 2 deadly points on garuda EX, you can win the battle on the 3rd try but not 1st nor 2nd, and even if someone says they won before the 3rd try she/he's is lying or was just lucky.

I never felt excited in any battle of ARR, scripted battles are a lazy, poor and bad design, anyone can design an scripted battle because they require near to no balance and even less if they have lots of 1shot mechanics.

Every fight being scripted gets boring fast.
Full random fight might be ok, but only if it is "draw from the bag", where an enemy cant use the same ability again until every ability from the set got used.
There is also another option - every enemy ability has a cd, and enemy has true AI.

Personally I think scripted is easier and a bit boring. That isn't to say I don't enjoy these fights, there really should be a mix of both IMO. Right now we have it just one way and it makes fights play out way too much the same all the time. Either a group doesn't get it and we wipe and do the exact thing over again, or we do well and it played out nearly exact as all my previous wins.

I've done Titan EX so many times I can sleep walk through it. If I get people on vent less familiar I literally call out every dodge they need to do. The only thing that keeps me half interested is post heart pickup on adds, dodging their land slide and goop, and the line bombs put on Titan's face or goop side.. really the only things that require an iota of thought process. People still fail because they don't take the time to pay attention to the rotation. I am sure there are people still doing it for their 3rd-5th time who still don't know its totally scripted.. Just memorize plumes (most right after stomps lawl) and moving will get you through most the fight.

I don't mind that some or many of FFXIV fights are scripted but unforgiving, I just wish there was *SOME* mix of random in the fights. Like 80% scripted fights to 20% random fights would at least liven it up a bit.

I never fully memorize the scripts. My brain just doesn't work that way. I'll remember "when XYZ gets to whatever% HP this ad will be summoned" or "have to dps this down before this happens", but I'm never going to really the patterns of attacks.

Because of that, it's almost non-scripted to me. While everyone else knows to run to Point A at this second, I'm probably gonna get hit and need to adjust my attacks and cool downs. I play by ear mostly and I don't use macros.

The only reason I don't care for scripted fights is that other players will chew you out if you haven't perfectly memorized the scripts and if you make mistakes. The community hurts the game more so than anything that's IN the game.

Most MMO boss fights are now scripted. Boss uses certain ability at set intervals, either by time or hp percentage. I am OK with this as long as the mechanics to say avoid ability or survive it are interesting. Dodge mechanics are way overuse in this game. I would like to see some double edge sword mechanics were to avoid damage maybe necessary, but if you do someone else will eat a hit or need buff/debuff provided by getting hit to meet an additional mechanic in the fight.

I don't find memorizing patterns fun at all. Having them as scripted as they are just makes me want something like a deadly boss mods add-on that can remember it for me.

The benefit of the scripted fight is that they can tune it to a really challenging level. If bosses used abilities randomly I can guarantee that the developers would have to tune down the fights in difficulty considerably to account for the random factor and I think the challenging factor of fights like EX titan would be lost.

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Originally Posted by MomoOG

I think the challenging factor of fights like EX titan would be lost.

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The challenge is only in finding 7 players that know the script well enough.

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Originally Posted by Doo

The challenge is only in finding 7 players that know the script well enough.

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There is a reason why its challenging finding 7 other players that can do the fight because its a challenging fight for the majority of the population. I can better describe what I mean by challenging. Titan ex is a wipe if people make 1 or 2 mistakes (most often even just 1 unless people are considerable over geared for the fight). If they made the fight random, they would have to tune it so people could succeed with even 5-10 mistakes.

The thing is, we're playing the roles of healer, tank, and dps, which makes our activities very predictable. We are not able to dynamically switch rolls in combat to adjust to a boss whose tactics can change on the fly depending on what we do. A tank is stuck doing tanking stuff and a dps is stuck doing dps stuff. A boss that can recognize this would wipe the floor with the entire group unless you could change jobs on the fly in the middle of combat. By the way, that would be awesome if we could change jobs on the fly during combat (making it a little more like ffx-2 I think), but it would require a massive overhaul to how combat works in the game. I mean on the level of a full expansion pack.

If they made the attacks random, people will come here to whine when a boss randomly decides to spam an attack for some reason, making it impossible to beat. Or they'll whine when it spams stupid moves making it too easy. You know it will happen.

Actually, after reading this board since the game came out, I'm convinced no matter what SE does, people will whine. They could genetically engineer moogles in real life and give one free to every subscriber, complete with lifetime amount of moogle food, and people would whine about how they won't stop saying kupo, they don't say kupo enough, that they don't say kupo at random intervals, that they basically made their plushie moogle they own pointless, and that it drinks all their wine.

no, memorizing fight feels like memorizing text book just to take a test.

I've said it before, so I'll come in here and say it again.

I suck at recognizing patterns. It also takes me a very long time to get movements saved in muscle memory. This makes it very difficult for me to find any fun in any of the fights available in ARR.

I miss not just random fights, but the 1.23 battle system. Abilities that lasted longer than 10 seconds or less, abilities and flexible skills that allowed you to think, plan and use actual strategy for boss fights.

In all honesty, I probably could get to the point where I learn the fights well, but considering just how much practice that would involve, I don't see it being worth the time investment. I'd rather learn how to build a database than run a fight every day, a couple of times a day for a week or longer in order to get the rotation, then do it all over again for the next fight.

I miss having to think and plan your method of attack. I played dark knight in FFXI, and I was one of the very few drks I knew that wasn't dead all the time. One time, my husband was with a group in Sea, and every single time I looked at his screen, their drk was dead again. ><

Bring back the necessity to think and plan strategically. As it is, ARR feels like an fps disguised as an mmorpg.

I think scripted fights have their place... But I feel like they may be over-doing it some. This game makes me feel like I'm playing "Simon Says" sometimes.

I've seen GREAT players die in trivial fights like Garuda NORMAL because they simply forgot the script. In a lot of ways I feel like they are removing skill and instead forcing muscle memory on us. Those of us that have a lot of time to play but very little time to play seriously... That's hard to deal with.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrK

I think scripted fights have their place... But I feel like they may be over-doing it some. This game makes me feel like I'm playing "Simon Says" sometimes.

I've seen GREAT players die in trivial fights like Garuda NORMAL because they simply forgot the script. In a lot of ways I feel like they are removing skill and instead forcing muscle memory on us. Those of us that have a lot of time to play but very little time to play seriously... That's hard to deal with.

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I agree that they are using the "simon says" method of designing fights way too much, hopefully the upcoming leviathan fight takes some "random" elements into play to keep the barge leveled out. (i.e. player position, direction of incoming damage etc) Im not saying to completely remove things from the "simon says" formula, but to incorporate some "randomness" within even said systems, specially in a game that uses telegraphing for incoming attacks.

I don't think its a "bad" system in itself (i.e. titan ex should prolly stay "simon says" style), but it will lead to every fight taking the "same" method of learning to clear. (idk if this was just a bug during beta or intentional but i remember the dragon boss in brayflox would go ape shit and range attack if the tank avoided every poison breath, or if tank took the poison hit a least every once in a while the ranged attacks were minimal. just mean little things like that, they really do go a long way)

Little mantra in my head whenever I'm doing anything...

Titan HM as DPS ->
Stack, Break, Stack, Break, North Edge -> Jump
Break, Stack, Break, Stack, Break, Stack, North Edge -> Jump
Break, Stack, Break, Marker, Break, Stack, Break, Gaol, Stack, Break, Stack, Break, Safe Zones, North Edge -> Jump
Break, Heart, Gaol, Break, Limit, Heart, Stack, Break, Gaol, Stack -> Earthen Fury
Stack, Break, Front/Back/Left/Right/Marker/Safe Zones + Lure, Break, Gaol, Stack, Break, Repeat until Finished.


Everyone eventually learns or partially picks up a similar understanding; if they don't they likely have a hard time getting through the fight - ie. eating a plume, eating a bomb, flying off

It varies slightly - Healer and Tank have to additionally remember "Mountain Buster" in the final phase mantra. Healers learn to time their Medica II right as Tumult start, and how to precast Medica on Jumps and begin moving to avoid plumes, Tanks learn how to stretch their CDs and prepare for Buster etc.

If you've got a voice chat and someone with a good memory they can just recite what's coming next so people can prepare - this is how our Australian friends started getting through the endgame content.

Grouping in FFXIV boils down to memory and meeting gear checks; everyone demands experience - they want you to know the pattern, be able to recall it accurately, and execute accordingly. This demand is usually accompanied by gear requirements - people are human and they can't maintain a perfect repetition indefinitely; we break down, we make mistakes, we lose focus, or our dexterity suffers - this is why many fights seem impossible in lower item level gear.

The last factor in grouping is latency; connection to the server is vital. If your connection is unreliable you are, by extension, unreliable.

^ FFXIV and FFXIV's community have several draw backs; and with the vehicle of Duty Finder/Instanced content coupled with this style of content it quickly breeds a hostile environment.

Personally: I enjoy playing FFXIV with people I know; something I feel developers continually discourage by using excessive reward and content lockouts, limited social interaction within your server, and almost no content geared toward large groups (Free Companies & Linkshells) that is not cosmetic (Housing) or badly implemented (FATE),

I don't include Crystal Tower yet because I am holding onto the hope that we will, someday, be able to queue with a 24-man pre-made Free Company Alliance.

I would like to see random.

Although I'd like the AI to be more counter active and responsive, I still enjoy the battles, especially pvp, since that is player vs player and always random. That is why I hope they introduce major upgrades to FF style pvp, like adding front-lines etc. But when you look back at the history of video games, almost all bosses/enemies have patterns. Mega-man, Zelda, final fantasy series, most fighting games- all these games had routine fights once you memorize the fight. Even the first mega-man game where you have to fight the giant blob dude lol. At first I thought the fight was hard as hell, until I realized every time he shifts from one side to the other, it was all timed or in a sequence. Almost every games bosses were like this.

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Originally Posted by Synapse

This system is made for the people who can't do well when the monsters do random things. Things needed to be in pattern for these generation to "win" anything. Even with that people fail. If the monsters do random attacks, most of the population would never finish anything.

*win = give it for free*

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Even with an AI people will just look up "Easiest party build to not deal with BS" and would try to make the fight as braindead as possible.

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Originally Posted by ulti_19

Although I'd like the AI to be more counter active and responsive, I still enjoy the battles, especially pvp, since that is player vs player and always random. That is why I hope they introduce major upgrades to FF style pvp, like adding front-lines etc. But when you look back at the history of video games, almost all bosses/enemies have patterns. Mega-man, Zelda, final fantasy series, most fighting games- all these games had routine fights once you memorize the fight. Even the first mega-man game where you have to fight the giant blob dude lol. At first I thought the fight was hard as hell, until I realized every time he shifts from one side to the other, it was all timed or in a sequence. Almost every games bosses were like this.

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Just as this video explains, lol.

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Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

Memorization has been part of video games since the beginning. Like it or not - but being good at memorization is a video game skill. There are countless amount of people who love the Dark Soul's series and those boss fights are all about memorization. In fact, many people love FFXIV because it's one of the only MMOs that offers that old NES style memorization gameplay. Most MMOs you can be good at purely by playing a lot and earning the best gear. FFXIV actually requires you to have gaming skill. I for one enjoy it.

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I wholeheartedly concur with this sentiment. There have been "Master Boss Patterns" since way back when in gaming. Try playing through Contra Hard Corps (Sega Genesis), BattleToads (NES), or any of the Megaman games. There are parts to remember in all of these games in order to get through them.

Memorization has always been in games, it doesn't surprise me that it found its way into this MMO.

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Originally Posted by Tahldon

Memorization has always been in games, it doesn't surprise me that it found its way into this MMO.

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Single player games are ok for it but when you have to rely on 7 other players it gets pretty stupid. Unless you play in a bubble of players you know. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad if the party size was 4 players since it's a lot easier to find 3 competent players.

It's boring and make getting through a fight with people who haven't done it before a chore.

As others have mentioned, having set patterns to everything means that each attack you get hit by will essentially one-shot kill you. That is bad when you are in a group with 7 other people. One persons fucks up one time in a 10 minute fight and it's game over. That's bad game design.

Having a certain element of randomness to fights would allow designers to give enemies attacks that don't one-shot and instead test the skill of the players. It would make good players stand out more and make fights less repetitive. You'd always have to think about what you are doing instead of clicking on auto-pilot.

Just my two cents.

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Originally Posted by Taruranto

It's boring and make getting through a fight with people who haven't done it before a chore.

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^ this.

Don't create a casual MMORPG then make it so the only way to "get good" is wiping on a boss over and over until you memorize it. It's beyond retarded. No wonder people are quitting, when they get so much shit for "not knowing the fight" (which means, knowing what the boss does step by step or die and drag the party with you).

I don't like to memorize fights. I'd rather have a fight that tests your skills and reaction time. Don't make bosses use the same patterns so that you HAVE to memorize the fight to win. Make it random so that it is all about your ability to dodge and adapt to the fight as it progresses.

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Originally Posted by Ri_ri

^ this.

Don't create a casual MMORPG then make it so the only way to "get good" is wiping on a boss over and over until you memorize it. It's beyond retarded. No wonder people are quitting, when they get so much shit for "not knowing the fight" (which means, knowing what the boss does step by step or die and drag the party with you).

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this is the main issue.

im afraid of new players , or hell players that dont learn the fights the first 2 days after are realeased , because guess what? after even 1 day ppl will ask u if u know the fight , yes? got invited , No? sorry but only experienced....

joining party finder w/o knowing the fight is a fast way to be blacklisted and ignored by the whole server (GL finding partys in the future)

u can ask your FC to wipe for hours in order for newbies to learn encounters but that sounds lame.
"hey guys i wonder if u dont mind going with me to Titan EX , so i can learn the fight?, yeah u will wipe over and over...but thats ok! right?"

yeah let me waste 1h wiping so u can learn a fight!

the ppl that know the fight GET FRUSTRATED , and who can blame them , when they have been wiping until they learned and now can avoid everything?

there is a huge wall between ppl that know the fight and ppl that dont.

If bosses were more random , and didnt have so many 1 shot mechanics :rolleyes: , ppl that has only seen 1 video or read a guide , could participate and win ...

PF is a good example of whats going on >>> titan exp after heart phase ONLY

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

this is the main issue.

im afraid of new players , or hell players that dont learn the fights the first 2 days after are realeased , because guess what? after even 1 day ppl will ask u if u know the fight , yes? got invited , No? sorry but only experienced....

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Pretty much there's no good way to learn fights...

DF- Teams leave after one or two tries or you get raged on for not knowing how to do things.
PF- High standards

So you're left with learning from videos and strategy guides or making your FC/LS go through the fight with you for hours.

This is especially hard on tanks since they tend to have to take the initiative. For a casual friendly game this has got to be the most un-casual friendly end game ever.

The encounters in this game are built on oneshot boss mechanics. Also this game has some of the worst netcode and server code I have seen in an MMO. Random skill boss mechanics would make this game completely unplayable for 99.99% of players just because of the lag. Even when you know Weight of the Land is coming the lag still kills you. Sorry, that's just how this game is designed.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

this is the main issue.

im afraid of new players , or hell players that dont learn the fights the first 2 days after are realeased , because guess what? after even 1 day ppl will ask u if u know the fight , yes? got invited , No? sorry but only experienced....

joining party finder w/o knowing the fight is a fast way to be blacklisted and ignored by the whole server (GL finding partys in the future)

u can ask your FC to wipe for hours in order for newbies to learn encounters but that sounds lame.
"hey guys i wonder if u dont mind going with me to Titan EX , so i can learn the fight?, yeah u will wipe over and over...but thats ok! right?"

yeah let me waste 1h wiping so u can learn a fight!

the ppl that know the fight GET FRUSTRATED , and who can blame them , when they have been wiping until they learned and now can avoid everything?

there is a huge wall between ppl that know the fight and ppl that dont.

If bosses were more random , and didnt have so many 1 shot mechanics :rolleyes: , ppl that has only seen 1 video or read a guide , could participate and win ...

PF is a good example of whats going on >>> titan exp after heart phase ONLY

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Originally Posted by Ri_ri

^ this.

Don't create a casual MMORPG then make it so the only way to "get good" is wiping on a boss over and over until you memorize it. It's beyond retarded. No wonder people are quitting, when they get so much shit for "not knowing the fight" (which means, knowing what the boss does step by step or die and drag the party with you).

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Pretty much. In XI you could do bosses with a party of newbies who never attempted the fight before because the fight didn't have many 1hit-kill mechanics (except maybe Avatar 2h or Alexander 50% HP move? And maybe Diabolos fight, I don't recall much), I remember doing fights like Alexander and Promathia (I loved re-doing these fights so I helped tons of people with them) and successfully winning them with people who never did it before. We wiped a couple of times, but if everyone knew who to play their job you knew you would win, unless something unlucky happened (like Promathia hitting and killing Selh'teus lol) They weren't easy fights, before someone claims so.

In FFXIV you'll just be stuck dying over and over, even if you have the best players on the servers in your party the bosses can't be killed until everyone memorize the patterns. A friend ask you to help with with Titan? Oh boy, be ready to wipe for the next 10 hours or so until everyone memorize teh patterns (if the party doesn't disband after 2 tries).

I don't mind memorizing fight patterns one bit.

I memorized them back in the day of the original megaman series where the enemies attacked in patterns and you moved to the patterns. That tried-and-true formula has existed since the early days of video games. If kids are complaining that they don't want to dedicate the same amount of work as a seven year old child, I don't think we should accommodate them.

I wish I could speak more tolerantly than this but failing, dieing, and learning is a natural process. People did die over and over again in FFXI's encounters, and the mechanics there were often more muddled than they are here. Here, when you make a mistake, it's clear cut. You understand that you did something wrong and you work to improve it.

The severe level of impatience these of players these days is what adds to the stress of it all. If people were to take things slow and easy they'd actually progress through.

Why do people say fights are about memorization here?

Plumes targets random party members, landslide targets random party member, bombs are random (with 4 possibilities at least I believe).

There is a lot of randomness in fights.

If you want a fight with NO set pattern at all, it would be boring, and basically boil down to "avoid red circles when boss randomly casts it." Maybe for 1 boss it would be interesting, but you can't keep making content using the same 'no pattern' trick.

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Originally Posted by Kadas

Like Ifrit EX, for example. Incinerates are thrown off here and there, whereas the rest can be broken down into patterns.

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Wrong, even ifrit does incinerates at specific times. That fight is the most scripted of the bunch. There is even a certain spot in the final nail phase where your tanks don't have to swap if the pld uses hallowed ground at 3 stacks before the next 3, causing them to drop all their stacks.