My Eureka Concept

[KaldeaSahaline]

It's probably due to my hatred for 8 mans. Which is why I said make it light party.

To which I asked you to identify ways to make 4 man content engaging, you have yet to engage in this topic repeatedly.

[Wintersandman]

To which I asked you to identify ways to make 4 man content engaging, you have yet to engage in this topic repeatedly.

Not a content designer. You posted here for feedback and I am providing it and why I dislike it.

But you could always make it Light Party and like Diadem/RW have multiple groups and have the content scaled based upon how many people in the instance. Or make it an open zone where anyone could participate solo, light party, full party and those different groups could engage in various objectives in the zone which would eliminate people getting locked out and also people being forced into a full party or a group for that matter.

Fates have a bad rep but you can make fates meaningful like the chains that are all over the world. Breaching the Hive and Clearing the Hive are perfect examples. You could have a fate like event going on where you are breaching or storming a keep and could use a combination of cannons, mechs, magitek, etc that the full party could engage or several solo people could use the cannons to enable the full party that is charging through. Or have various things going on that tailor to Alliances, full parties, light parties, solo.

And before you say you detest fates lets compare a fate to a dungeon. A FATE is a open world time based event with an objective to complete. An dungeon, trial or raid is an instanced time based event with an objective or multiple objectives to complete. FATE chains are the equivalent to a the multiple objective aspect. You don't have to have a FATE chain that takes you all over the map as can be seen by chains in Coerthas and South Shroud.

[Zojha]

To which I asked you to identify ways to make 4 man content engaging, you have yet to engage in this topic repeatedly.

The same way you make 8 and 24 man content "engaging", except with less wiping because one in X people didn't jump the rope in time?

You put in mechanics, aka the FFXIV variant of "Simon says". You can even make solo content like that, just replace every group interaction mechanic with "stand right here right now", because that's what they end up boiling down to anyway - You're coordinating your strat with your team in advance and assign positions for where to stand when what mechanic happens. And then you go to your position and pray that your teammate isn't a dummy because what he does is out of your hands. What happens if you scratch the teammates and leave the positional mechanic? You only scratch the part where you pray your teammates aren't dummies, you still go to your position - now assigned by the encounter instead of the static leader or Xenos guide.

Let's take a ride through A11S solo edition. Or non-trinity edition, whatever you prefer. I'm using this example because I did the fight so often, it's still rather clear in my head and because it's one of the more challenging and likely engaging fights.

Phase 1:
You start by pulling Cruise Chaser and he starts by throwing right and left laser swords and spin crushers instead of autoattacks at random people. Optical sights work entirely the same, except a random clock position is called out when a clock position is demanded. Whirlwind becomes a gaze attack. No add, but the pauldron spawns on Cruise Chaser himself and needs to be killed in time. Cue limit cut and 1-8, which will slowly count down from 1 to 6 and alternately drop chaser images and corresponding target markers, the latter only if you face the most recent chaser image to emulate the current gameplay. An image without target marker will cause a wipe. It works the same again in P3. Counting to 6 instead of 8 because you may not overlap target markers and there are only 3 safe placings between the turrets in Phase 3. Then the ATE begins and you transition to phase 2.

Phase 2:
You start off with the lazuli that need to be killed in time while dodging the boss' attacks. The bomb balls need to be placed by the usual rules, i.e. no overlap. Lasor X becomes an attack you need to face, so keep that focus target on him while hitting the orbs. Eternal darkness follows and you continue with the next phase as by the previous mechanics, except that now Photon happens and takes on the rules of Acceleration bomb, i.e. you may not move or attack for a brief moment when it happens. The add will spawn as usual, without autoattacks but with its lance attack and enrage. First attack hits low but puts a brief vuln up on you that forces you to dodge the other attacks as you'd have to if you'd tank it regularly. Soon after, Phase 3.

Phase 3: Same as now with the adjusted moveset. GA-100 works the same as now, except only dealing damage to the towers and non-targeted players getting too close if you're doing it in a group. Propeller wind works the same as now, lasers work the same as now, towers work as usual. Every mechanic in the whole thing only deals damage to you if you fail it and the HP of adds, shields etc are simply lowered to be beat-able by (Insert desired group comp here).

That's no bit less engaging than the original, only more so if anything. It's definitely a bit more challenging from the perspective of a DPS, because they only get more stuff to deal with here. Main differences in this version are healer and tank specific mechanics, because those are self-contained, i.e. the other party members don't really interact with them. DPS can't heal, DPS can't mitigate, so all mechanics pertaining either are irrelevant to their gameplay and engagement - If coupled with a different mechanic (such as prey), they only need the portion that pertains them, i.e. the "don't stack" part for their gameplay, which can be translated into "Stand at position X" for solo. For a healer version, you'd simply tune HP values lower and allow the boss to autoattack or something.

You can translate just about any trinity and group content into similarly engaging non-trinity or solo content. There is but one limitation: You cannot translate uncoordinated groups without a plan, nor dummies that wipe the raid by failing their part very well. Human error is hard to emulate mechanically. But those tend to be frustrating more than engaging.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

While I'd agree that there's certainly nothing to necessarily make a given fight any more complex when scaling to higher player counts, the lack of such indicates wasted opportunity, imo.

Consider the difference in complexity from 1 to 6 players in Overwatch, for instance.

Each added player creates additional factors, by-fight and in macro, of interaction or by which to leverage a win. Rather than redundancies, they end up being mechanically augmentative.