Mental exercise: create/change mechanics

Let's say SE is designing new mechanics or a twist on existing mechanics. Something to really bamboozle players as it is outside of expectations. Or, it is a rarely used mechanic that is often forgotten. It could be something new entirely too. What would you make?


Maybe I missed a particular danger- do mention them if I did.
Now, let's put a spin on them. Take your average mechanic (or multiple) and change it, replace it with something else, or create new mechanics.

I'll start with two examples.

The fail condition is not positioning the boss.
An alliance raid with 4 bosses at once for its final fight. This will mean a tank will need to double up. When a boss is felled, the tank needs to do everything in their power to drag it away far enough or else one of the bosses will consume the dead and double all of its stats (and gain a new appearance, maybe something like a fusion). the changed boss hits twice as hard and gains the mechanics of the departed. Stats double every time it eats a fallen boss. If it is felled, another boss (if close enough) might eat its corpse and gain the stats and double it. Failing to move it away after consuming the other three will make the boss go berserk and begin picking off players individually. At that point, each hit is enough to one shot a tank and then some. It stops doing anything else and chases down players and auto attacks.

Another one:
Tank buster veers upon hitting its target.
Tank busters can be line or AOE (and cone too I think). Now, what if you take the line tank buster and have it veer left or right upon hitting the tank (or unfortunate DPS)? Maybe it veers for every target it hit. In a disastrous situation it might zig zag as it hits multiple players

edit: I just remembered a discussion I had with a friend about mechanics in a general overview. What if there were mechanics that acknowledged some jobs if they were present? It may get kind of complicated if you include every job but feel free to try if you want. What would those mechanics look like?

I know its frowned upon but i rly liked randomzied non scripted fights in ff11 but i know balancing may not make it possible in xiv

A mechanic that auto bans anyone who types up slander about the game incessantly on the forums.

(bump :3)

a status in a raid that if a player receives it, they'll become contagious. If they get a vuln stack, a nearby party member gets the vuln stack. If they get doom, a nearby party member gets doom.
The contagious status can stack. An extra stack will mean another party member will become contagious or multiple if there are 3 stacks. At 3 stacks it becomes curable. If the entire party is contagious and one is cured, they aren't made contagious right away (given 5 seconds of immunity. The boss would need to apply contagious again). At 5 stacks status goes away and 3 incurable statuses take its place: disease that lasts 30 seconds, damage down that lasts 1 minute, and Misery that lasts 1 minute.

There are orange stack markers and red tank stack markers that simply deal extra damage. Now let's have inverted stack markers (same visual but green or blue and pointing outward) that deal more damage the more people they hit. Cue evil laughter.

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Originally Posted by MonteCristo

I know its frowned upon but i rly liked randomzied non scripted fights in ff11 but i know balancing may not make it possible in xiv

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I would mind that tbh. I would just need to pay attention to the cast bar and my surrounding more. It would likely take me longer to learn tho so I may struggle for a bit

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

There are orange stack markers and red tank stack markers that simply deal extra damage. Now let's have inverted stack markers (same visual but green or blue and pointing outward) that deal more damage the more people they hit. Cue evil laughter.

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that is evil XD
I like it

I mean it's a game so you can do all sorts of arbitrary things if you want to bamboozle players:

- A tankbuster that punishes if the tank is in their tank stance

- An attack that punishes players with full health

- An attack that punishes every player with a self-buff, or punishes every player without a self-buff

- A damaging move that can be mitigated by performing the appropriate behavior when it hits, but the correct behavior is determined individually for each player in accordance with which of the Twelve they aligned themselves with during character creation. For example, Halone players must be moving, Azemya players must be standing near another player, Nymeia players must be standing still, Nophica players must be away from other players, etc.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

- A tankbuster that punishes if the tank is in their tank stance

- An attack that punishes players with full health

- An attack that punishes every player with a self-buff, or punishes every player without a self-buff

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There's a separate thread for bad ideas. :p

I think the best way to create new mechanics is to experiment with arena design. We've been seeing one of these 'variable' arenas for one fight each tier lately, although it would be more interesting if tank positioning/movement played an active part.

Visual tells are another way to make fights more interesting, especially if you remove boss cast bars as well.

I personally really like creative mechanics around undeath. Forgall from Mhach had a nice Necropurge/Megadeath mechanic, and Neo Exdeath likewise had a Living Dead styled mechanic in Beyond Death. Speaking of Neo Exdeath, it's much more interesting to integrate tankbusters alongside other mechanics rather than to have them go out in isolation when everyone else is in downtime.

In general, I'd like to see more "chaotic" mechanics or things with less strict patterns. I think my favorite singular mechanic in all of Endwalker was during the fight with Shishioji on Mount Rokkon where dozens of very thin line AOEs fire across the arena in all different directions, creating a large, semi-random pattern that can be easy to get clipped by. I want more mechanics like that--stuff where it's possible to avoid, but expected that you will take a few hits and to not punish the player for taking some. Another similar example from Shadowbringers would be E5 Normal, where the battlefield gets sprinkled with a bunch of small, briefly telegraphed circular AOEs where lightning strikes, and you simply dance around them.

I want fights to feel more like I'm battling against a threat, not performing a dance recital with my opponent. It stops feeling like I'm fighting things. Or where it feels like there's an actual battle going on because there are multiple smaller things happening all over. Thornmarch is another example. I know people never liked it because of how you had to lower all the moogles at once, but I really liked the actual mechanics of that fight.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think the best way to create new mechanics is to experiment with arena design. We've been seeing one of these 'variable' arenas for one fight each tier lately, although it would be more interesting if tank positioning/movement played an active part.

Visual tells are another way to make fights more interesting, especially if you remove boss cast bars as well.

I personally really like creative mechanics around undeath. Forgall from Mhach had a nice Necropurge/Megadeath mechanic, and Neo Exdeath likewise had a Living Dead styled mechanic in Beyond Death. Speaking of Neo Exdeath, it's much more interesting to integrate tankbusters alongside other mechanics rather than to have them go out in isolation when everyone else is in downtime.

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Maybe tank busters trigger another mechanic once they go off and it is up to the tanks to play accordingly for best results!

Within what we currently know the combat system might accomodate:

- More fights with constant damaging raidwide auras. This gives the regen healers more of a spotlight.
- More fights with priority adds. Not the 'add phase' that we see mostly, which looks like more of an 'intermission mini enrage' rather than handling both boss and adds at the same time.
- Stuff that only a ranged unit can do, like killing a certain target that is off reach by everyone else before it explodes.
- Halfway throuh the encounter, the party needs to distribute in groups of [(main tank + main tank's healer) / (off tank + 1 melee) / (1 melee + 1 ranged) / (flex dps) ] over platforms surrounding the boss. The other healer is not assigned to a group specifically and needs to be on the run periodically across platforms to triage everyone's unavoidable damage, and keep in check which platform will be assaulted with aoe next.
- Boss always directs the tankbusters at healers or at the dpser with the highest damage output and the offtank needs to help soak them.
- Boss periodically heals or esuna themselves off people's dots, so the tanks and phys ranged interrupts are actually useful.
- 'Healerbuster' assaults on healer's MP bars (probably only if actual MP management becomes more of a thing).
- You need to beat the last 20% health of the boss FAST. The 'enrage' is just a periodic raidwide every 10s getting stronger and stronger until it becomes impossible to heal, that while doing the mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think the best way to create new mechanics is to experiment with arena design.

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E4S, definitely not the hardest but imo still the best savage fight in Shadowbringers.

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Originally Posted by Local_Custard

(bump :3)

a status in a raid that if a player receives it, they'll become contagious. If they get a vuln stack, a nearby party member gets the vuln stack. If they get doom, a nearby party member gets doom.
The contagious status can stack. An extra stack will mean another party member will become contagious or multiple if there are 3 stacks. At 3 stacks it becomes curable. If the entire party is contagious and one is cured, they aren't made contagious right away (given 5 seconds of immunity. The boss would need to apply contagious again). At 5 stacks status goes away and 3 incurable statuses take its place: disease that lasts 30 seconds, damage down that lasts 1 minute, and Misery that lasts 1 minute.

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I wanna say coils had a fight like this a long time ago but my memory sucks

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Originally Posted by MonteCristo

I wanna say coils had a fight like this a long time ago but my memory sucks

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is that so? :0
Can someone confirm this? I cannot check because my computer is out being repaired

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Originally Posted by Local_Custard

is that so? :0
Can someone confirm this? I cannot check because my computer is out being repaired

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I don't remember exactly how it works, however, Allagan Rot from T2 is the first thing that sprang to mind.

To add something else to the discussion, something I have mentioned in the past is stuns/interrupts being useful, but not in the way that they stop an attack, but they change properties of it. As an example, a raidwide does massive damage, but, if you stun it, 50% of the damage goes out as normal and the last 50% goes out as a DoT over, say, 15 seconds. Whether something like this could be coded in the current engine is unknown, but it would shake up the dynamics of a fight, especially if you had different effects based on stuns or interrupts.

Found it! It was turn 2 coils

https://youtu.be/mqP2ooPB9ys?si=II1Ni7B7uTFajXXy

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

I don't remember exactly how it works, however, Allagan Rot from T2 is the first thing that sprang to mind.

To add something else to the discussion, something I have mentioned in the past is stuns/interrupts being useful, but not in the way that they stop an attack, but they change properties of it. As an example, a raidwide does massive damage, but, if you stun it, 50% of the damage goes out as normal and the last 50% goes out as a DoT over, say, 15 seconds. Whether something like this could be coded in the current engine is unknown, but it would shake up the dynamics of a fight, especially if you had different effects based on stuns or interrupts.

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For this hypothetical, let's say the mechanics aren't limited by code or at least the code can accommodate it-

I would love if stun had more uses- too often I find myself itching to use it and finding it does nothing. I love interrupt. It's a skill I miss having when not playing bard, machinist, or gunbreaker. Sometimes I think whenever I play redmage: "man I would love if redmage had interrupt" (disclaimer: I have no idea if interrupt would be good or bad for redmage)
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Originally Posted by MonteCristo

Found it! It was turn 2 coils

https://youtu.be/mqP2ooPB9ys?si=II1Ni7B7uTFajXXy

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watched into this video and yeah it is similar, though the version of debuff I wrote is less about juggling who does and does not get it and more about curing as soon it reaches a certain point. Though, in essence it is the same- a debuff that acts like a disease. Thanks for linking the video!

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

I don't remember exactly how it works, however, Allagan Rot from T2 is the first thing that sprang to mind.

To add something else to the discussion, something I have mentioned in the past is stuns/interrupts being useful, but not in the way that they stop an attack, but they change properties of it. As an example, a raidwide does massive damage, but, if you stun it, 50% of the damage goes out as normal and the last 50% goes out as a DoT over, say, 15 seconds. Whether something like this could be coded in the current engine is unknown, but it would shake up the dynamics of a fight, especially if you had different effects based on stuns or interrupts.

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They might not be able to implement changing an effect on the fly, but they don't necessarily even have to.

Let's say we simply make the cast interruptable, but if it is interrupted then the boss will cast the other spell immediately afterwards.
This could have the additional side effect of changing fight timings depending on which spell you've interrupted and which additional casts the boss consequently performs, delaying other mechanics.