Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Meier]

I can say this much..the 1.xx battle system and fights did not feel scripted at ALL. Gear and skill meant quite a lot more then simple memorization in 1.23. Why they took what we had away for this..I'll never know.

[Velhart]

I can say this much..the 1.xx battle system and fights did not feel scripted at ALL. Gear and skill meant quite a lot more then simple memorization in 1.23. Why they took what we had away for this..I'll never know.

1.xx was the same for at least since the new team came in. Gear was relevant not because of the content itself necessarily, but because you needed any small "oomph" you could get to push content underneath the 17 minute mark.

Also, skill in fights like Ifrit was more towards knowing dealing with the system than the content itself. Things such as animation lock, latency, and crashes were definitely more of an issue than actually dealing with the mechanics itself. Like the game wasn't built for that type of content, but they put it in anyways.

Not holding a candle to ARR, because I have my own complaints, but 1.xx was definitely not great to deal with.

[Asuras]

I have always disliked insta-death boss abilities in MMOs. It is simply a cop-out for lazy design. When it is difficult to design challenging fights with increasing gear level (meaning higher HP, DPS, etc) and player skill, lazy designers just throw in "death-touch" abilities.

If anyone remembers the old Everquest days, bosses would just randomly target players and "death-touch" them. The only difference in FFXIV is that the designers disguised the unpopular "death-touch" as avoidable Titan/Leviathan knockout abilities and Melusine petrification. Such abilities totally ignore gear level and character stats and eliminate players from the battle.

No matter how much you disguise the archaic "death-touch," you can't fool the player. Design innovative ways to challenge higher geared and skilled players without insta-killing them. Otherwise, people will catch on soon enough on just how lazy the boss fights are... as evidenced by this extremely long post from the OP.

[Lemon8or]

The only difference in FFXIV is that the designers disguised the unpopular "death-touch" as avoidable Titan/Leviathan knockout abilities and Melusine petrification.

I much prefer the ones you can dodge with player skill than random any day. I feel that it cheapens an encounter when you're just able to outgear it.

[Asuras]

I much prefer the ones you can dodge with player skill than random any day. I feel that it cheapens an encounter when you're just able to outgear it.

I disagree that player skill equates to memorizing boss fight mechanics. Part of the reward of getting advanced gear and levels is feeling powerful when going through older content. I certainly enjoy going back to starting zones and one-shotting level 2 and 3 mobs from time to time. I certainly see nothing wrong with that. When you outgear older content, you steam-roll through it. Of course, when designers make content with disguised "death-touch" abilities and phases that can be deadly when pushed (stronger DPS), it shows an element of laziness in the design. They did not want to account for gear level at all. It simply makes designing the fight more difficult. You have to do things the way it was scripted (albeit short-cuts or mechanic-cheats that players have developed).

[Lemon8or]

I disagree that player skill equates to memorizing boss fight mechanics. Part of the reward of getting advanced gear and levels is feeling powerful when going through older content. I certainly enjoy going back to starting zones and one-shotting level 2 and 3 mobs from time to time. I certainly see nothing wrong with that. When you outgear older content, you steam-roll through it.

Different cup of tea for different people I guess. Besides turn 9 phase 1, I don't think I memorize any fight's rotation. I memorize how to deal with each mechanics as it comes up. I always felt it cheapens the fight in older RPG when you can get so powerful you just massacre everything. For example, when I played Pokemon Blue for the first time, I ignore every single pokemon and just level my starter Squirtle into Blastoise. Sure it was fun one-shotting the Elite Four when my Blastoise was like level 100 (mind you Blastoise could learn Earthquake so I plowed through the Electric gym and use Normal type moves for Water type Pokemon) but it's not as fun as leveling different pokemons trying to anticipate different scenarios. Or more recently Disgaea. You can grind yourself, rebirth a couple times and be the strongest character ever then go through the story but what's the point in that? I surely don't appreciate it. If you ask me "then what's the point of getting stronger items and better yourself". Well it's to challenge harder fights, not to steam roll through easy ones.