Hardest XIV fight possible

[Obysuca]

Gamers nowadays can handle a wipe or twenty when trying to overcome.

Just remember, people rage quit over a single wipe in XIV lol

Creating a good difficult encounter is more than just tossing a lot of bs into a mixing bowl that's just meant to spite players. It actually requires a lot of clever thinking.

Tell that to Dark souls :P

[Toguro]

Elysium will beat it in 2 weeks any way. Or less...

[Shurrikhan]

Or:

You give a boss a large toolkit with unknown limitations and the AI to actually use it well across multiple enemy compositions / situations.

Oh no, how will we memorize it?!

[Mahri]

Tell that to Dark souls :P

Dark Souls is (yes) my absolute favorite game of all time, and this is precisely where I'm coming from when I say all this. The best fights in that series are the ones which allow the player to pick up the rhythm, understand how a particular boss is going to attack, and plan their own offensive accordingly. Sometimes it's a gimmick, sometimes it's a duel, sometimes it's one-vs-many, sometime's it's man vs. oh-my-god-you've-gotta-be-kidding-me monster. Kalameet, Ornstein & Smough, Knight Artorias, Sir Alonne, the Executioner's Chariot, the Burnt Ivory King, Saint Aldrich, the Abyss Watchers, the Four Kings, and the Dancer of the Boreal Valley; these are some of the prime examples of really mean fights that nonetheless feel great because there's such a payoff to figuring it out, and you can tell that quite a lot of work (that aforementioned cleverness) went in to making sure they get it just right.

Ironically, this series does have some prime examples of how not to design hard fights. Bed of Chaos, being nothing more than a gimmick with totally unavoidable instant-death mechanics and a requirement that you fight with shoddy platforming controls to win, Oceiros the Consumed King, who's easy on paper yet is marred with an incredibly damaging attack with no tell and a giant hitbox, and the Nameless King, which is a good one-on-one fight but requires the elimination of a shoddy, cheesy miniboss (of a sort) that seems designed to obliterate your resources before the actual boss can be taken on.

The fact that it has both good and bad difficult fights makes it a useful subject for discussions like these. The issue with MMOs is that difficult odds need to be handled not only by yourself, but by however-many-other players, and so once again...

The hardest fight is between each other.

:P

Also...

Just remember, people rage quit over a single wipe in XIV lol

Don't do this, guys! You're better than this. YOU CAN DO THIS! YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS!

-- Me, every single time that "A motion to abandon" prompt comes up during a Weeping City run.

I mean, you're right, but I can't stop hoping, y'know?

[Khalithar]

Just include jumping puzzles.

[Sylkis]

A boss that morphs into any other random boss (model, skills, AI but not stats) within the game every 30 seconds. The boss will also update its pool to pick from when new bosses come out.

But there's a 10% chance that the model becomes misaligned with its skills and AI just to mess with people

[Shadotterdan]

A boss where getting hit by any avoidable attack is an instant kill.

[Morningstar1337]

A boss where getting hit by any avoidable attack is an instant kill.

Nidhogg comes close. Cauterize can already oneshot most players, as does Horrid Roar. Hot Wings/Tail is a little too weak for that (This is on NM, I haven;t done EX)

[Warlyx]

Or:

You give a boss a large toolkit with unknown limitations and the AI to actually use it well across multiple enemy compositions / situations.

Oh no, how will we memorize it?!

bouquet + spread mechanic + petrification + adds divebombing + tankbuster

there are mechanics that cant go toguether because is impossible to deal with it....

creating a boss encounter isnt easy i guess

[SomeRandomHuman]

Ozma Extreme.

That is all.