Would you improve if the content required it?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Depends if I find it fun. Challenging fights with true randomness, where you can never have a perfectly straightforward and easily memorizable cool down rotation, where not every single gcd can be mapped out to perfection from start to finish? Yes, yes.YES.

Kind of a shame the devs said they'd never do that, but ah well. I prefer things that test your adaptability. Memorization isn't an actual skill.

Fights that simply have bigger numbers, but easily mapped out? Not particularly fun.

People tend to want their victories earned through their own merits and skill rather than coming out on top just because they got lucky that the boss did not use a tankbuster move 3 times in a row.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

People tend to want their victories earned through easy predictable and rehearsed fights rather than through skill.

I agree, people don't want to get better or adapt, generally speaking, they want fights that are extremely predictable with no deviation from an easily mapped out rotation. Anything that's easily mapped out isn't hard, it's just about being able to memorize a spreadsheet. Even if it's new people are still able to map everything out.

I don't like 'challenging' fights where you can reliably say, "We pushed into phase X, tank buster in 20, raid wide AoE right after, then white damage after for 30 seconds." Just as an example.

For casual content? Sure, whatever, that lends itself nicely to easy content. Stuff that's supposed to be hard? Doesn't really mesh for me

Simply put, the ability to adapt is far more difficult a challenge than the ability to memorize.

[Zojha]

Simply put, the ability to adapt is far more difficult a challenge than the ability to memorize.

Where's the big difference between the two?

Either way, you're going to memorize what the boss can do and how to respond. Tank buster -> Focus heal on the tank. Spread mechanic -> Spread etc. These are pretty much the solutions to a given mechanic - you won't solve a stack mechanic by spreading or focus healing the tank, you'll just die. The only thing you really change is that instead of memorizing when things happen, you have a reaction time check. And depending on how good your reaction time happens to be vs how good you are at memorizing, that can be either more or less difficult.

[Nora_of_Mira]

Where's the big difference between the two?

I think the difference is: memorizing involves knowing what mechanic is coming up next and how to deal with it, while currently dealing with the mechanic at the moment and maximizing potential based on all of this information. You can perfect it because its literally the same every time (unless some RNG is involved, but in cases like Sophia Ex and Seph Ex, its just what corner to stand in, what side to run to, etc).
Adapting, IMO, would be required if the mechanics didn't happen in the same order, or maybe the mechanics had 2ndary effects that were different each time. Knowing how to deal with each mechanic would be required, so it kind of overlaps with memorizing, but I don't push them together because you can't predict and plan ahead (I like to think of Ravana Ex needing you to adapt to his Warlord shells because you only get 1-2 second warning where his shield is going to be and since it can lower my DPS as a DRG to ignore my positionals, I would probably hold off on my CDs until I can use them at their best potential).

[Zojha]

Adapting, IMO, would be required if the mechanics didn't happen in the same order, or maybe the mechanics had 2ndary effects that were different each time.

It's still the same thing, though. As I said, you always memorize what can happen and how to respond. Just as in the case of Ravana - you memorize what "The seeing X" means and then go to the side you can DPS on. That's plain memorization. You can also memorize that the free side is the one you can attack from and just stand there like a dummy when you see the cast and move to the free side before resuming.

It's not much different. It's like learning vocabularies: In both cases, you're going to learn the word and the meaning. One test asks random vocabs of you and you have 5 second to answer with the right meaning, the other asks for the meaning of the vocabs in a given order.

[Nora_of_Mira]

It's not much different.

I think I see your point, I agree it's the same for the most part. Learning to adapt requires memorization. I think it's really interesting how fights can be really scripted and paced the same every single time yet some are more engaging while others are snooze fests. I thought it was maybe the need to react quicker when theres 3+ mechanics going on but maybe its more.

[Pells]

I think I see your point, I agree it's the same for the most part. Learning to adapt requires memorization. I think it's really interesting how fights can be really scripted and paced the same every single time yet some are more engaging while others are snooze fests. I thought it was maybe the need to react quicker when theres 3+ mechanics going on but maybe its more.

Take the Echidna fight in Void Ark. Tanks who have memorized the fight will go to the right places when she splits into three. Tanks who haven't tend to end up badly placed. Tanks who can adapt will move when paired with tanks who mess this up; tanks who have only memorized just sit there yelling because "that's how it's always done".

Adaptation is for the unexpected, which helps greatly when matched with random people or mechanics. Memorization would help adaptation, since you can be proactive rather than reactive, but isn't necessary. Ideally, you'd be capable of both simultaneously.

[Naunet]

People tend to want their victories earned through their own merits and skill rather than coming out on top just because they got lucky that the boss did not use a tankbuster move 3 times in a row.

While I agree with this in part, I also think there are ways to design fights that incorporate the learning of challenging mechanics (and the sense of accomplishment that comes with being able to do so) while also avoiding the feel of this perfectly scripted dance.

Phageborn Convergence in WildStar's first raid Genetic Archives is a great example. There are five bosses, and on any given week one is not active while you fight the other four. Each boss has core mechanics that you need to deal with in different ways, so there's some strategic planning involved when you first get to the fight, but periodically throughout the fight, one of the bosses becomes empowered and teleports to the middle. When this happens, everyone must turn their attention to dealing with a new mechanic that is unique to that particular boss's middle phase. There is no pattern to which boss teleports to the middle, which forces the raid to adapt depending on which one is up at the time. Some of the middle phases require a large degree of coordination with the raid, such as "hammer" middle phase (the boss wields a giant hammer, hence the nickname for him lol), where he gains 20 interrupt armor and starts casting a very large absorb shield. Every time someone hits him with an interrupt, it does massive raid-wide damage, so the general strategy is to coordinate 5 groups of 2 people interrupting in turns while being mindful of the raid's HP as the healers recover from each raid-wide explosion. Once you've interrupted him, the middle phase ends and the raid can split back up to wherever their previous assignments were on the different bosses.

That's just one example, but I think it works well in blending practiced coordination (which I don't think should be undervalued, especially if the coordination is challenging enough) with a certain amount of unpredictability.

[edit] "Randomness" can also occur in how a mechanic is applied to lend variety, such as the distribution of big and small bombs in the X-89 fight, the first full boss in GA. If you're chosen for small bomb, you have to run and drop it at the edge of the area (when it explodes, it destroys one of the hexagonal platforms the encounter is carried out on), and if you get big bomb, you run off the entire arena to avoid destroying the entire platform (when the bomb explodes, it will bounce you back up and you can aim for safety as you land). They are mechanically rather simple, but you never know if you're going to be the one given a bomb and which one it will be, so you have to pay very close attention to what's happening to you - and what's happening around you, in case another raider misses that they got the small bomb, so that you can get away from them before it explodes and destroys the hexagon you're standing on.