Why encounters with a difficulty slope are bad

This thread is why casuals need to have their posting privileges taken away.

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Originally Posted by Sepix

Good Design:

T1, T4
Garuda Ex, Shiva Ex, Levi Ex, Mog Ex, Odin
T7, T8

Bad Design:

T2, T6,
Ifrit Ex
Pretty much every fight in FcoB

Horrible Design:

T5, T9

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http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...nt/category/4/

>> Hasn't completed FCoB
>> Only Completed T5 and T9 1-4 times
>> Never completed a Coil tier in their relevant patches
>> Concludes fights are bad design and the hardcore have no idea what they are talking about

Frankly the fights that have their original mechanics built upon in gradually more interesting, restrictive, or challenging ways are the best ones. Fights that constantly go "VWOOP here's phase 4, which is actually an entirely different encounter from phase 2!" have all my hate from a game design perspective. Add phases to mix things up are one thing, but I seriously wonder why Twintania and Nael couldn't have been split into at least 2 entirely different fights.

I mean, other than to arbitrarily drive raiders crazy.

I just want people to stop being bad at Turn 5. It's nearly 2 years and people
still can't get it together...I mean Jesus Christ. I'm scared to see what lies ahead.
Going to be 5.0 still sittin in T9.

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Originally Posted by Karen_Cerfrumos

Enrage timer is there as the accountability check for DPS. Otherwise you'd go in there with 5 tanks and 3 healers and turtle all day.

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Yep, so much this. Theres pressure on healers, theres pressure on tanks. The enrage timer is to put pressure on the DPS to hit a certain standard also. It also drives you to be better, for example getting to add phase on t12 with 4 Bennus for the first time gives you a sense of achievement that you are pudhing your role better.

My fave fights tho are Ultmima HM, Titan Ex, t7 pre nerf (serious love/hate relationship some weeks with that turn XD) t9 pre nerf (t8 just gave me RSI almost :P) FCOB while fun fights dont stand out as much as the previous ones I mentioned due to, pretty much, rehashed mechanics.

Pretty sure T9 is the best fight in this game. And I'm not even kidding. It's got the most diverse mechanics in one fight than any other fight in the entire game, and it was really fun to clear in the relevant patch.

Saying something is bad design is practically a meme at this point, a dogwhistle whenever someone personally struggles with difficulty but can't take responsibility for it.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

Saying something is bad design is practically a meme at this point, a dogwhistle whenever someone personally struggles with difficulty but can't take responsibility for it.

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Not always, ive cleared everything apart from t13. Some fights I just don't want to run again. eg Levi Ex, ive cleared it multiple times as tank, healer and DPS and I won't do it anymore, nothing to do with difficulty, it's just I don't like the fight. Shiva Ex I got bored of pretty quickly due to it being a pretty repetitive fight and super easy.
Just 2 examples.

Oh and t13, still progressing and loving the fight.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

Saying something is bad design is practically a meme at this point, a dogwhistle whenever someone personally struggles with difficulty but can't take responsibility for it.

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Remember that time the game's lead producer apologized for T-EX because he didn't realize how unfun it was for players outside of Japan's 5ms ping internet infrastructure until he tried playing the fight on a trip to Australia and got landslid repeatedly?

Yeah, no. Some fights are just crap design.

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Originally Posted by Krr

Remember that time the game's lead producer apologized for T-EX because he didn't realize how unfun it was for players outside of Japan's 5ms ping internet infrastructure until he tried playing the fight on a trip to Australia and got landslid repeatedly?

Yeah, no. Some fights are just crap design.

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Did he even said that ? Titan EX is fine and fun, of course if you don't get screwed by your ISP.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

you answered half your own question.

Conflag isn't an add, neither are Titan Gaols or am i reading your first sentence wrong? you can also have mechanics like the Captain in Sastasha HM, where he keeps shooting you until you do enough damage to make him stop. not every DPS check has to do with Adds. Heaven's Fall is kind of a DPS check, i've never cleared T9 without skipping the 3rd Heaven's Fall.

it's not super difficult to make things progressively harder for lower DPS groups without a hard enrage. increase the number of Tumults as the fight gets longer. add a 4th and 5th Ifrit to charge across the screen. Shiva already gets damage stacks over time, eventually staff mode will kill you, why do you need a hard enrage in that fight?

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Yes Conflag and gaols are adds, they are things you can kill that are summoned by the boss, it's not because they aren't monsters that they aren't adds.
For mechanics like the captain in Sastasha it's indeed a dps check but not only, if you have more healing power you can survive longer and therefor you can do it with less DPS so that's not a true DPS check it's a balance between healing and DPS check, same goes for Shiva gaining power, you can still get through most of these while turtling if there wasn't a hard enrage, think about the T2 enrage mode as the perfect exemple for a turtle strategy that is really gamebreaking.

The point of a hard enrage is to have a DPS check for the whole fight and not only for DPS check phases, so you can create fights with some parts where you don't have to put a DPS check so that if the players die too much they can't win even if they raise a lot.