FFXIV / Tera battle mechanics

[Rinsui]

People want the grind to be hidden. If the gameplay in your game feels grindy and mindless, then it's failing, and people will ask for less grinding. Objectives and quests usually help, but if they're too generic and repetitive, it'll just feel like you're grinding quests instead of enemies.

This. I never felt the grind in FFXI to be "grindy", since I just *loved* the party play and constant threat of being wiped and losing EXP because you attacked monsters a good 10 levels above you. It took me, like, 2 years to reach LV 75. But I enjoyed most of it. Why? Because the battle system was good (at least for that age of gaming - considering today's standards, it is old-fashioned. Especially in direct compaison to TERA and similar new titles).

[Kurokikaze]

People want the grind to be hidden. If the gameplay in your game feels grindy and mindless, then it's failing, and people will ask for less grinding. Objectives and quests usually help, but if they're too generic and repetitive, it'll just feel like you're grinding quests instead of enemies.

In the end everything can be considered a grind... the difference is whether it feels that way or not: whether your players are tricked into believing they're not grinding.

Exactly. Getting exp doesn't just have to be pulling a mob to camp, killing it and repeating ad nauseum. You could do quests that don't even require you to kill mobs, anything else to give the illusion that you're not grinding. Do some mid-range dungeons; the mobs would reward some decent (not too high) SP while bosses give more. Add in some quests that require killing the boss in a certain dungeon for mass SP rewards.

I mean really... Other games do it and they do it well. Would it be so bad for this game to learn from its peers?

Currently we have: grind the same set of leves from 22 to 50 or grind mobs because quests don't give us SP and Guild Tasks ranks are too low.

Again, it's all about making it seem like you're not really grinding. You could be having fun doing random shit and all of a sudden "oh hey I got 2 ranks." This in itself shortens the grind without touching the exp/sp tables (which would be a quick SE fix).

Thats where FFXIV needs to be in terms of SP acquisition.

[Arcell]

Didn't read everything in the thread but:

I'll agree it would be more exciting if the NMs had a larger variety of attacks and moved around a bit more. Having it stand in one place for the entire battle makes things less challenging and sometimes just boring. Attacks that allow the monster to reposition in a meaningful manner (NOT like Unknown Soldier -_-) can make things more interesting and challenging.

[Jinko]

Agree that we need better ways to gain SP, why don't NM's award SP ?, I hope to god dungeons will.

Quests should give decent SP also.

As for NM's in this game well they are the most boring and sleep inducing I have seen in a game in a long time, they aren't dynamic they just stand there and do the odd AoE every now and again.

Oh and SE please please please increase mages healing distance, when people are running around standing on the otherside of a large monster (Great Buffalo) it requires us to get too close to reach them, at which point if the NM decides to stomp the floor we are basically dead. (I'm sure the hardcore brigade will come in here and say it adds to the difficultly of the fight, but it really doesn't its cheap and pointless)

I'm not asking for massive range on all spells just healing spells and possibly stat removal spells (not that anyone uses them)

[Rentahamster]

Oh and SE please please please increase mages healing distance, when people are running around standing on the otherside of a large monster (Great Buffalo) it requires us to get too close to reach them, at which point if the NM decides to stomp the floor we are basically dead. (I'm sure the hardcore brigade will come in here and say it adds to the difficultly of the fight, but it really doesn't its cheap and pointless)

I'm not asking for massive range on all spells just healing spells and possibly stat removal spells (not that anyone uses them)

Well, it's not a problem with THM, but the magic range on CON is a joke. The circle AOE needs to be a lot bigger, and the range needs to be slightly farther.