Why I have no interest in Coils more specifically, T9.

[Wournsfeik_Untawhasyn]

... snip for space ...

You hold up Cerberus as an example of the right direction? Cerberus, who's only novel concept is taking you to a different zone for a bit of the fight?

Cerberus, who's every single mechanic is still 'Deal with Adds', 'Avoid AOEs except THAT one' (which yes we've seen before), and 'Stack on his flanks and lay on the damage'?
A fight that goes precisely the same way down to the letter every time I'm in it? A fight that is so heavily scripted I could set a watch to it? But it'd be a pretty terrible watch, admittably.

The Good King EX is a better example of a fight where you just need to know what COULD happen right now and you need to respond to it. But I see precisely nobody even bringing it up as a good example. That's telling.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Not that the mechanic itself was mind blowing, that very fact that it was just different, yes a bit gimmicky but a move in the right direction. Moogle EX is also another one where it was different, I just didn't think of that one at the time of my writing the last post. I just know what will happen if there is no change up to the way we do endgame fights it will either become bland or near to impossible. Neither are bad but we have 13 coils to speak for any how many of them are different? T5, T8, T9, T10, T11, T12, and T13 have all the same exact organized memorization fight mechanics, and offer nothing different besides the name of the attack and the damage it deals, it all boils down to dodge/stack for over half of the endgame Coil content.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Not that the mechanic itself was mind blowing, that very fact that it was just different, yes a bit gimmicky but a move in the right direction. Moogle EX is also another one where it was different, I just didn't think of that one at the time of my writing the last post. I just know what will happen if there is no change up to the way we do endgame fights it will either become bland or near to impossible. Neither are bad but we have 13 coils to speak for any how many of them are different? T5, T8, T9, T10, T11, T12, and T13 have all the same exact organized memorization fight mechanics, and offer nothing different besides the name of the attack and the damage it deals, it all boils down to dodge/stack for over half of the endgame Coil content.

Have you done Final Coil? There's a lot more to it than just dodging/stacking.

[Mercutial]

Mog EX is simply not any fun. I know there are those who might disagree. But general consensus is "blech" (at least among my friends and others on my server). Is it the RNG of the fight that makes it this way? Is it the actual need for deeps to go against their instincts and sometimes slow down damage? Is it the bloody song? Who knows.

But I agree, the fact that it hasn't been mentioned is very telling indeed.

[Ayrie]

If you think all the turns are the same... I really don't know what to say.

Do you just want goofy gimmicks all the time? I don't really enjoy wiping to gimmicks. Gimmicks means you need a certain level of luck to pass... please don't do x mechanic back-to-back!

Right now you simply have to pay attention, adapt to stimuli, and execute your job the best you can.

Moogle EX was fun... but not entirely unique... Shape phase of Kaliya is similar.

And finally: repeating that design needs to be better is a worthless endeavor if you want it to change. Give them something to work with. Model a set of mechanics you'd like to see instead. If you want to have a fight where everyone has to win a triple triad game against the boss in a set timer then say that. Offer a way to move the discussion forward.
You want to be the voice of change... what change are you proposing?

[OMEGA_HACK]

Have you done Final Coil? There's a lot more to it than just dodging/stacking.

Yes I have all the mechanics are dodge XYZ telegraphed attack or (spread to dodge other people's AoE targeted attack on them) or stack on each other or in a particular way to mitigate/survive XYZ attack. Care to give an example where one of those fights don't utilize those same style mechanics?

[Ophie-Mio]

1) Make mechanics stack on top of each other or have slight overlaps requiring the perfect precision in order to complete (from the first EX Primal to Bahamut Prime we have seen this as a factor as mechanics are getting closer and closer to one another)
2) Make more dodge/stack mechanics appear in a single battle (which we have also seen from the first EX Primal to Bahamut Prime)

I just wanna add in my two cents here on this one...

But while mechanics stacking on top of each other is awesome because you have multiple things to think about, the dodge/stack mechanics are awful. >_>

I refer specifically to the "stack together" mechanic that appears in every final boss fight of coil, including random side turns such as T6, T8, T10, and T11. (And multiple primal EXs but yeah) This mechanic is used so commonly now that it's awful to me. To me, that is the most unoriginal mechanic to bump up difficulty that I can think of. Stacking awful mechanics together goes a long way more to providing difficulty than the stacking which just makes a healer's life annoying.

But that's how fights are artificially inflated in my opinion. Either annoying tank swap or annoying "stack together" mechanics designed to both distract healers from the next big hit or just for the sake of it, grab lots of MP.

Also...fyi...as someone who has done each and every turn (including T3), they all feel pretty different to me in terms of mechanics. I can't just do one and walk back into an older one and feel like it's a bike ride. I have to get back into the swing of what I learned back then. Though I still think that collectively the raiders of this game think that FCoB is the simplest in terms of mechanics and difficulty when compared to original unnerfed SCoB.

[Mercutial]

Moogle EX was fun... but not entirely unique... Shape phase of Kaliya is similar.

That is an unbelievably astute observation. Right down to the random AOE's and debuffs. Did I mention I hate the add phase in T11 as well?

[Kosmos992k]

Omega,

I'm not sure that the majority of posters on this forum are welcoming of anything that disrupts their existing mastery of team jump rope in Coil and faceroll easy speed running in everything else. Just mentioning organized memorization - aka team jump role, aka team dancing, aka boring and requiring memorization skills more than anything else is usually enough to earn outrage from that very noisy minority of players. Personally I would prefer fights that used your skills in terms of mastering your class and being able to formulate strategy both before a fight and during in response to the intelligent actions of the Boss you are fighting.

Simple RNG driven Boss fights are annoying, because the level of difficulty depends almost entirely on RNG. Scripted fights become the organized memorization team dance challenge we have. But, fights with a Boss that has some decent AI and a skill palette similar in scope to players is far, more engaging and challenging. Difficulty can be varied simply by extending status effects, increasing their potency or increasing the damage done and/or Boss HP/MP. The actual decisions the Boss would make would be AI based, and not predetermined by script, so regardless of the difficulty level the fight would still be engaging, but the fight would scale better to player & gear levels.

It would still be practical to script particular phases by changing the strategy used by the AI for each phase such as; using status attacks, or the Boss becomes enraged and gains certain bonus status effects for a time, use of a one time ability (let's call it limit break) to drastically boost it's defense, or attack, or make an ultra wide range AoE with major damage. Those things can be scripted in to the different phases along different target priorities, or even whether it's playing defensively or offensively. There are many ways to adjust the strategy, and with multiple Bosses on the stage at once, players would be challenged doubly to handle them both, especially if their skills differ, but they can cooperate dynamically.

This is much more difficult to code than a simple script or RNG, but so much more rewarding for the players. Once that kind of system is in place though, the difficulty can be scaled by several means, nerfing stats, nerfing defense/attack/status potency or even dumbing down the AI for an easy mode. Conversely allowing the full AI, boosting stats and defense/attack/status potency or even opening up an additional 'ultimate' attack could increase the difficulty. you can vary the difficulty dynamically based on player gear and level too, so an ilvl 130 party would have a harder time than a party with an average ilvl of 90.

Frankly I don't understand why they have relied so heavily on organized memorization, except that it is better than simple RNG driven battles and far easier to code and balance than an AI based fight. Still, once the AI is in place, it can be built upon and tweaked for each individual boss. Personally I think this would be a very worthwhile exercise for them, and it would prevent content from becoming what some would term faceroll easy when players memorize and moderately overgear the fight.

[Ashkendor]

The Good King EX is a better example of a fight where you just need to know what COULD happen right now and you need to respond to it. But I see precisely nobody even bringing it up as a good example. That's telling.

Mog X is pretty boring, especially as a tank. I don't know many people that enjoy running it.

Yes I have all the mechanics are dodge XYZ telegraphed attack or (spread to dodge other people's AoE targeted attack on them) or stack on each other or in a particular way to mitigate/survive XYZ attack. Care to give an example where one of those fights don't utilize those same style mechanics?

Flare Star/Rage of Bahamut in T13 was sorta novel to me in how you have to share the stacks around.

Also, you forgot tethers. And divebombs. Our devs love those. xD