Are we as players afraid of a challenge?

[Shurrikhan]

I think that attitude stems from the content being more of a dance with specific steps that must be done a certain way to ensure the party doesn't wipe. Naturally, people will have to practice more ( or less ) depending on skill level, and finding consistent groups at the same level can be difficult, as we've seen over the years. Again, I'd just like to stress that content difficulty should not mean "more phases" in trials, but instead content that can be considered difficult while being able to be handled dynamically.

While I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more variance in means of handling a given mechanic in a few fights, I don't think there's anything wrong with dance fights, especially when there's still enough leniency not to interrupt casts constantly (or if such is used for fitting spectacle, as in T9S, used rarely enough that casters aren't significantly devalued compared to their later bonuses). Done right, it gives a neat sense of being pulled along by the mechanics, getting a handle on its flow, finally ascending over or staying atop them, only to be introduced to a new current. Now, that's a rarity, but that feeling does come directly from the patterned positional relative and exact intervals of 'dance fights'.

I'd like to see other ways of approaching fight design, just as if possible I'd like to see more pattern and less script, something that'd have you looking more at your allies than at a rotational sheet, within 'dance fights' themselves. (Heck, if you could imagine a trial that doesn't even have combat, exactly, literally being a dance of sorts to appease the spirits where you're as much creative as reactive, as awesomely as you can imagine that incredibly vague concept, and then merge the two... it'd probably be something like that or within the spectrum of that combination.) Pretty much exactly as you had bolded. A bit less rigidity, in what design types we have, and within the design types we have.

...Also, I wonder if we're ever going to get sub-targets, e.g. Brachiosaurus feet and its head...

[CookieMonsta]

While I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more variance in means of handling a given mechanic in a few fights, I don't think there's anything wrong with dance fights, especially when there's still enough leniency not to interrupt casts

One fight which I dearly missed from my previous MMO was one where it was effectively an Arena with 20 waves of mobs thrown at you and an 8 minute hard enrage. Now each and every mob puts crippling debuffs on the team (like Vul up and damage down or slows etc etc) to the extent where the healers have to immediately triage which debuff is the most important to remove and which to just deal with. And to top it off, if someone dies, they get a Weakness 15% stat down stackable till 5 with a 1 minute duration.

This was a Savage level trial and there were many ways you could approach the fight like bringing more tanks and healers would mean an easier time with the debuffs but you risk enrage, or bringing more DPS and hard burn but risk one mistake costing the whole 8 minute run.

[Kallera]

hm....I don't think it is afraid of a challenge, its just, I've seen what this game's idea of challenge looks like, and it is not the fun kind of challenge.

It is either running the easy content a large number of times until it is well past boring...
or dealing with teeth pulling mechanics with a party of 8, where if one person is out of step, well time to all line up in front of the boss to die, assuming it wasn't some time bomb dps race with OHKOs just for giggles...

After that fight, I'm at a loss at what I enjoy. I have to choose between too unforgiving or too repetitive. I know no one is above needing work on their own role, but when its not your fault, and you still lose consistently, that's when the challenge becomes something not worth doing instead.