Less Memorization - More Reaction? (Trials/Raids/Bosses)

Haven't read through the entire thread, but surely someone has mentioned the final boss of Stone Vigil HM. That fight is entirely reaction based. If you got hit by something, that was your own fault for not paying attention to the bosses movements.

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Originally Posted by Chihaya

Absolute Virtue ver. FFXIV go

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I want this.

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Originally Posted by Yumi_umi

Devs see it as
Team jump rope Cannot have an unscripted attack pattern mixed in it. Cuz a lot of mechanics r like its all or nothing, hit or miss.
If bosses were more random A LOT of raiders would probs call it quits as the amount of skill needed to understand a fight would greatly increase and go beyond the watch vid strat.
Se spoiled a lot of statics with monotone 1-2-3 mechanic heavy fights that barely change if the static is on their game. That much control given to a player just makes them bored as they feel too safe.

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You say that yet you havent completed 2nd or final coil. the turns that have more randomness are in said areas.

People ceaselessly whine about every fight when it's completely predictable. I somehow doubt making people have to use their brains is going to assist the apparently helpless masses.

The top players really have no trouble with whatever SE puts out. I think its only 5-10% of the playerbase that clears final coil of Bahamut every week. But those players will clear the raid regardless of the mechanics because they are skilled.

Its the middle and casual players the ones who don't clear final coil that have a problem with clearing content. Randomness is an difficulty increase in most cases will only have a effect for mid or casual players. Hardcore players will still clear it.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

The top players really have no trouble with whatever SE puts out. I think its only 5-10% of the playerbase that clears final coil of Bahamut every week. But those players will clear the raid regardless of the mechanics because they are skilled.

Its the middle and casual players the ones who don't clear final coil that have a problem with clearing content. Randomness is an difficulty increase in most cases will only have a effect for mid or casual players. Hardcore players will still clear it.

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I agree, simply making the encounters random would not work. What about applying a bit more logic to the boss encounters?

What I mean is, Titan (for example) has a set of moves that he can use - like we do, so we can make the fight interesting. Give Titan;

• a global cool down,
• a rule set for when and how to use the moves,
• rules about the order his skills should be used in to make use of status effects,
• a way to assign threat and target priority,
• grant the rock head a tiny amount of intelligence for decision making,
• finally add 2 tenths of a second "thinking" time to his decision making

The thinking time prevents the fights from becoming cheapened by obvious "cheating" by the AI. This also gives the players a chance to react to what is going on.

This could work for any/all bosses, and would still allow certain phases of a fight to be scripted if that is what the designers desire. It would make the fights more interesting because a) the boss would act based on the player actions, and the players would have to have a strategy to deal with the expected actions of the boss, as well as reacting to whatever the boss actually does.

To make things a little more 'realistic' the AI could get a little fuzzy when there are two or more viable options, occasionally picking the less optimal option.

This would make fights much more unique each time they are run, and maintain a level of difficulty over a longer period of time until players either over-gear the fight, or the attacks used by the Boss are nerfed to facilitate easier progression over time.

I just feel like this would work so much better since it does away with team jump rope, but does not introduce simple RNG based cheating boss attacks. It's a bit more work for the devs, but the end result would be much more satisfying for players - in my opinion.

That's all true and good for the players that are looking for additional challenge. Trouble is the vast majority of the playerbase is drowning in the current simplified version.

There's no way around it. Randomization and enhanced AI requires more from players. It requires additional pre planned contingency stats to deal with certain combinations (last phase t10 is an example). It then also requires players to have the awareness to identify in real time what is being thrown at them as it can be a number of things. And yet still is subject to proper execution.

All we have now in general is straight execution. Those extra layers will be extra stumbling blocks to most. People can't follow a script how the heck do we expect them to improvise? This is a nice change for the upper crust that wants to be more engaged in fights after they are learned. Everyone else is just trying to survive in the 1st place.

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Originally Posted by Alex_Lenderson

Anyone else feel this would be interesting?

The idea could be as minor as giving a boss the same set of abilities but randomizing *when* they occur to something really crazy as giving bosses a pool of unique abilities but only grabbing one of them for the fight in addition to what they normally do.

The idea is to reward reaction and quick thinking as opposed to the rote memorization a lot of bosses are now. I'm not suggesting just make it harder, there should also be a flip side such as bosses having a bit less HP or a a few tenths of a second more to dodge abilities.

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If you can't dodge a mechanic that you know is coming, what makes you think you are going to dodge it not knowing it's coming?

Agreed. If theres one thing this game is lacking, its RNG

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Originally Posted by Izsha

That's all true and good for the players that are looking for additional challenge. Trouble is the vast majority of the playerbase is drowning in the current simplified version.

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It's just laziness. If it wasn't, I guarantee you this game would seriously crash - by the way you all sound you figure every player in this game is incompetent and can't put 2 + 2 = 4 together. People seriously don't know what they're capable of until you give them a chance and stop nannying them.

Only primary issue: lag for some.