A simple suggestion in response to Zadnor 1v1 engagements being cheesed

There's been some debate on how people feel about the current state of the 1v1 engagements in Zadnor. It's becoming more well known that by combining the right lost actions, specifically with elder flare star, the 1v1 engagements can be cleared in less than a minute. Some people find it amusing and enjoyable that absolutely broken combos of mechanics are possible. Others feel the exact opposite, and feel it makes the achievements and titles earned through them meaningless.

I don't think fixing the mechanics of such interactions and removing the possibilities on what people can do is a good idea at this point. I am not an expert at programming, but I'm certain even the smallest changes to mechanics could lead to further bugs and errors that would have to be tested out thoroughly.. which takes resources and time. It also wouldn't be fair for anyone attempting the achievements after such a fix is implemented when many players have already earned it through the cheese.

Instead, to help please both sides, why not just add a few achievements that can be earned for clearing the 1v1 duels on all of the different job roles? A similar split to how our job role quests in Shadowbringers would make sense, (tank, healer, physical dps, magical dps) as there are many lost actions specific to these roles. The other three roles do not have access to the same level of damage output possible, and would have to find new ways to optimize the fights. It would give a small but not too significant incentive for people that want to really engage in this content. It would not mess with or alter any of the currently set mechanics. It would just become another fun optional activity people can pursue while we wait patiently for the arrival of Endwalker.

The idea of instanced areas like Zadnor is they can put game-breaking Lost Actions in without it affecting the rest of the game. I think they know that it is fun to find creative ways to "break" a game and Lost Actions are designed to let you do just that, offering the actions from other roles to your own and letting you figure out how to break Zadnor with them.

Waste of resources. The content is already dead enough as is.

I like the idea but only if they made the duels easier to access.
I already plan to try to clear it on my other jobs as soon as the content will not be overwhelmed anymore.

On top of that, it's a fun adventure. Experiencing the content on different perspectives is great.
I doubt SQEX will add more achievements, at least Bozjan related, but it would be an amazing idea for future duels.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The idea of instanced areas like Zadnor is they can put game-breaking Lost Actions in without it affecting the rest of the game. I think they know that it is fun to find creative ways to "break" a game and Lost Actions are designed to let you do just that, offering the actions from other roles to your own and letting you figure out how to break Zadnor with them.

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While this is true, the main thing that's allowing people to cheese these is the ability to apply multiple buffs and replace them with different actions right before entering the fight. It is still very possible that the devs could attempt to "fix" this oversight by adding a cooldown for one or more of the steps in the process. Although I also think it's not a big deal either way, what people are doing isn't exactly the same as the intended way of breaking the game here, if that makes any sense.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The idea of instanced areas like Zadnor is they can put game-breaking Lost Actions in without it affecting the rest of the game. I think they know that it is fun to find creative ways to "break" a game and Lost Actions are designed to let you do just that, offering the actions from other roles to your own and letting you figure out how to break Zadnor with them.

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I actually agree with what you said here. I don't think they should change or alter any of the broken lost actions and how they work right now. It is still fun for some people to get creative in how much they can utterly break things. Because of that, all I think they should do is just add a few achievements for those specific set of people trying to engage with the content through a different conduit. Just a small, insignificant, silly thing people can feel like they earned SOMETHING for surviving through most of the mechanics of the fight, all in the name of fun.

An even simpler fix

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Originally Posted by MPK

Waste of resources. The content is already dead enough as is.

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It's alive for me, and it's alive for a decent amount of people right now. Also how is adding in a few silly achievements a waste of resources?

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

An even simpler fix

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Don't look!
Don't look at the bugs! Don't look at failed design!

Don't like BLU? Don't look!
Don't like bots? Don't look!
Don't like Housing? Don't look!

Ah yeees, "Don't look if you don't like it", the best logic.
If you don't like these topics, don't look! Apply your own logic before telling others what to do.

A simple outlook of my own, is perhaps they wanted it to play out this way. Perhaps they wanted some level of busted and broken design underpinning the Bozjan actions- It's a nice piece of fresh air from the typical monotony. If you want to do the encounters in the way they were designed, then by all means have your fun.

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Originally Posted by ZyphDefien

It's alive for me, and it's alive for a decent amount of people right now. Also how is adding in a few silly achievements a waste of resources?

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You're trying to argue with a troll who thinks that anything added that isn't Ultimate is a waste of resources...yet 99% of people couldn't care about if people cleared Ultimate or not.

Honestly, I'm less bothered by the actual cheesing nowdays and more concerned about the mentality it's breeding.

If there's a laughably easy way to clear the duels and give everyone a mettle buff, it puts mental pressure on people to do it as the jobs were reasonably balanced in terms of how quickly/easily they could clear the duels prior to Flare Star being added and there was no objectively "best" strategy/build for dealing with them.

I personally am trying to clear the duels "normally" before I attempt the cheese strat on any of them, but I can't help but feel like I'm depriving people because I know I could easily get the win if I simply abused RDM and buff stacking.

Let me ask all of you a related question: have you ever done raids in a game like this? There's so much cheese that it is ever-present. The playerbase truly loves their cheese. If the developers try to take away the cheese, they must be crazy and they should instead just embrace the cheese. If someone doesn't like the cheese, they deserve to be mocked. Every time a new raid (or anything farmable really) comes out, people will go out of their way to look for the good old cheese. When they find the cheese, they gleefully dig in until they get more of the same and find triumph in cheesing it all over again.

Most people enjoy the rewards more than any journey along the way (which is unsurprising considering what they are doing in these places, farming). So to avoid people jumping down your throat, cheese it. CHEESE IT!

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I personally am trying to clear the duels "normally" before I attempt the cheese strat on any of them, but I can't help but feel like I'm depriving people because I know I could easily get the win if I simply abused RDM and buff stacking.

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I mean, if you got selected for the duel then you're free to clear it anyway you want. You're not obligated to anything.
If people don't like you clearing it the "normal" way, then they can try to get the duels themselves and clear them with cheese.

Why not just make it so theres a cooldown on lost actions when you swap them out, and switching out lost actions removes all buffs/debuffs received from them?