Would you improve if the content required it?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I don't think it's cute to take my quote and twist it to mock me or others, but that's just yet another standard from this "lovely" community.

[Frowny]

Yep, and fflogs makes it worse. People seem to use fflogs to bash others rather than saying, "Hey, Jim... On fflogs, I saw that your dps was only 1k. Did you know that you can do 1.2k if you used more Dark Arts before Souleater?" But nope. It's "Your DRK OT is crappy with only 800 dps."

Really? Everytime I queue for Savage my fflogs are never mentioned... and I KNOW I can do much better. The only time I see bashing is "hey, BLM/SMN we need more AoE". In my almost 2 years or so I've NEVER seen what you claimed happens nor have I heard about it beyond the usual "hey, you messed up your rotation".

And if all you guys get are uppity dbags... if this is PF then your servers are horrible. When I started Savage I got nothing but support and people trying to hook us rookies up.

[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.

[rjspencer4]

I'll run difficult content only if I don't need a static for it.

[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).

[Hyperia]

I honestly think the community has improved as much as its going to improve. The developers have seen the data from the last 18 months and have a pretty good idea as to where they need to go in 4.X series. They always said that the 3.X series of patches were an experiment, hopefully they have the data they need to see this game into a very long future.

[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.

[thegreatonemal]

Well its the only type of difficultly you can do in a gcd game as you have less control the bosses have to be predictable and do the same thing in the same order. its not like action games like dark souls for example sure you can memorize all the different attacks that the boss has but the boss is reacting to you as well its not going to do its short range attacks if your far away from him the entire time hes gonna react to the situation at hand. works really well in one on one fights. How would that work if the boss has to react to 8 people or 24 or just 4 it just can't work in this type of game. so unless this game abandons its gcd and takes on a more action game style non of these games will ever be hard. hell the hardest part about raiding in this game is finding 7 other people who play the classes needed and can be on at the same time a few hours a week with you.

[Nora_of_Mira]

Well its the only type of difficultly you can do in a gcd game as you have less control

I always think about dark souls when I think "how can a game become more difficult and satisfying" and I think you're totally right. We can't expect that kind of play in a tab-targeting GCD game.