Is EX/Savage content a battle or a dance number?

[Ayer2015]

I think you've ]summed up FF14's higher end content accurately.

[Xerek]

I did look into O3S, and if anything it seemed even more mechanics intensive, and less forgiving should mechanics be failed. It does indeed seem far more difficult then O1S and O2S, but not because of the strength of the fight, but rather the additional number of mechanics in play, reducing the windows to tank/heal/DPS.

Now, there was a question as to what could be done differently. And that's a valid question. I think I'd prefer a randomization to the pattern, so you wouldn't know when something was coming, and fewer arbitrary mechanics. The idea being that you'd still have to learn all the special attacks for a fight, but you'd have to be ready to react, because while you may know what the enemy can do, you don't know what's coming next and would have to adapt. Maybe make attacks harder-hitting to push tanks/healers, and more use of adds as a DPS check to keep the DPS honest.

Mechanics should play a part in the fight, but should not be an absolute. Death should come because you were outfought and overwhelmed, not because you forgot to levitate and go to your point on the AoE marker when Catastrophe does his best Evil Otto impersonation.

Again, these are just my feelings. I know and acknowledge others are fine with the status quo. I just feel Savage as it is relies far more on my ability to memorize patterns then it does on my skills as a healer.

[Vaer]

Most wipes are not the result of a healer not healing well enough, or a tank not holding aggro...it's not the DPS not burning down adds quick enough...it's someone failing an arbitrary mechanic

Actually everything compounds together, failed mechanics if they don't lead to a wipe usually cause a dps loss where every death causes it to snowball and contributes to hitting enrage. The reason it feels like jump rope is because if they didn't do that it would just be casual content. Casual content is basically the same stuff, just lowered numbers, less coordination required, less reaction time required. Maybe someone dies the entire fight takes 12 mins no big deal just limp to the finish line since there is no enrage. (I actually had a O1N where the fight took almost 10 mins because people kept dying and playing terribly and we still beat it. We're talking two people died 5+ times. That wouldn't fly in savage, you would wipe to enrage.)

The enrage and mechanics work together to ensure the group actually deserves to clear. It is harder to just limp to the finish line like in casual content, everyone needs to do most of the stuff correctly (most of savage does not require perfection outside of certain one shots due to gear) and know how to play their job to a reasonable level.

Most wipes aren't "the healer didn't heal, the tank didn't tank" because you shouldn't be wiping to things like that when you are playing savage level content. It can definitely still happen though.

Even if you get the dance number right, you can still die to enrage due to the raid DPS being too low. So yes, there is still a certain point where the group isn't doing enough damage or playing well enough and that causes a wipe even if you do the dance 100% correct.

For example, Hashmal in Rabanastre.
It's sort of like the difference between the current version and a toned down version where the sand balls only do 10k if they explode and not wipe the entire raid, his dash just hits you for 50% health with no bleed and the towers don't one shot but just deal 80% of your health. Suddenly the fight is much much easier.

The punishing part of the mechanics with pass/fail conditions is part of the difficulty.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The thing with random mechanics, is that you can have bad luck with them and wipe. People will then just say "oh, if we get these 2 mechanics back to back, might as well just force wipe and start over and hope for better RNG next time"

People want the path of least resistance when doing content after all.

Besides, with RNG involved with mechanics, you then have less mechanics that have to hurt more, otherwise they wouldn't be punishing to fail. I don't really see that as anything different than what we have, other than going back towards like, T10. Very few mechanics, not very hard of a fight.

[Miste]

Well as a healer there are some reactionary things though.

Unless you are playing with a group that is perfect then you often have to make up for other player's mistakes.

Also playing on AST is probably the most reactionary you are going to get since the cards are random so each fight you do something different with them.

Also your explanation about Alte Roite Classical Elements I mean...there was nothing combat related because you left it out? When you say "wait for it...ice", why are you standing there waiting for ice? As a healer that is the perfect time to do some DPS because Alte Roite is casting Elements and then Downburst so no damage is going out on the tanks right there.

[Xerek]

Curious, so the assertation is the large number of arbitrary mechanics with devestating failure penalties turning Savage into a mechanics dance instead of a harder fight is actually required because there is no other way to create a suitably challenging savage-tier battle?

[Hruodig]

Rng as a raid mechanic is terrible and everyone always hates it. Every pull just becomes a guessing game of "hope we get the good one this time". It also takes away a feeling of personal responsibility-"eh we wiped but we got the shitty mechanic that time/weren't expecting x mechanic".

This is what high end raiding has always been; mechanics checks, dps checks, and healing checks with tank mechanics (adds/swaps/aggro resets).

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Curious, so the assertation is the large number of arbitrary mechanics with devestating failure penalties turning Savage into a mechanics dance instead of a harder fight is actually required because there is no other way to create a suitably challenging savage-tier battle?

How else would you do it?

No mechanics and just basically heal bot, tank bot, dps bot it? You can only do so much with damage before adding in mechanics, and mechanics will inherently have a solution to them. calling it DDR seems like an oversimplified way of say "dodge the thing" to me TBH.

Random mechanics is still DDR, you just have to push a different button on the pad.

[KaivaC]

Curious, so the assertation is the large number of arbitrary mechanics with devestating failure penalties turning Savage into a mechanics dance instead of a harder fight is actually required because there is no other way to create a suitably challenging savage-tier battle?

The thing is...well...as it stands, the current savage tier still remains challenging. A huge chunk of PF groups cannot make it to O3S library consistently, let alone even think about clearing it. The devs brought something new to the table with duty actions...I enjoyed O2S because of the float mechanic and Lakshmi's vril. Besides that, it is called Savage for a reason. Penalties need to be devastating, otherwise, everyone will just grind out a victory through deaths in a single fight.

[RiyahArp]

Yeah, the problem is that the system they made isn't the best for precision with random content. The older style of PvP before they fixed this illustrated it perfectly: it's actually really hard to use the GCD to plan for random events in it, and much of the game's moves were designed for the encounters they made, not for general purpose reactions. I find I didn't mind doing hard content for clears myself, but I cannot see farming it for the life of me.