It Would be Nice If Duty Mechanics are Explained by In-Game Tool-tips

[PyurBlue]

I had this idea that they could introduce more complex mechanics in normal duties, but have them give your a lower dps penalty instead of death. Still have the insta death mechanica we have now but on top of that, more complex ones and you'll be rewarded with extra dps when you go trough the effort of handling them, as an individual player.

I also prefer damage downs to instant death. They give the same feedback but a damage down doesn't sideline you into twiddling your thumbs. I just wonder how threatening they would be without an enrage, which is something that most casual content doesn't have. Still, I think they're worth having, and even if they don't raise the stakes I'd definitely try to avoid them just for optimization's sake.

What I'd really like to see is being able to fight to a draw (dynamically, not predetermined by the story) canonically in the MSQ and then have a rematch later where the mechanics are slightly different from the first fight, but similar enough that you can learn from the original encounter. That would allow for a fight free from instadeath penalties while still putting some pressure on players to succeed, but like I said before the game isn't designed to work that way so I don't know if it's a realistic idea.

Reply to a few above: (re: not insta death but penalties to give a second chance)

That’s kinda the direction they’ve moved in. I wanna say..4.0 onward, if you get hit by a mechanic it gives you a debuff that increases damage to you. Get hit by 1 and while probably fine. 2 or 3.. a bad time. 4+ probably dead.

It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good for what it is.

Vuln Ups are also better than instant deaths, but one issue with them is that they can punish you for failing completely unrelated mechanics. If you're totally new to a duty and like to go in blind, you could easily fail two obscure mechanics in a row and die. That's not necessarily a bad way of doing things, but I prefer to feel like dying is the result of a major mistake on my part rather than chance.If mechanics are obscure it pretty much comes down to chance whether you get them right or wrong. Given how SE has designed the game though, vuln ups are a good compromise.

[Genz]

Vuln Ups are also better than instant deaths,

Vuln up and instant KO share the stupid trait of making "healing" irrelevant, and are the source of the problems regarding healer jobs.

-

Duty mechanics explained IG may seem to be the next logical step for what's the game is currently doing, but it's still sold as a "RPG", and the suggestion, if implemented, would cement FFXIV as a glorified "Simon's says".

As an aside, Selenomancy is indeed a blatant design error (as often with instant KO). It would be already a little more intuitive if it was an increasing DoT for example.

[Quintessa]

Oh wow.

When a mob is about to do a paralyze move or whatever, there is a big reddish(purple?) EYE BALL that flashes on the screen, but I still see people not turning around.

Come to think of it, it doesn't really tell you what to do, just that something bad is gonna happen REAL SOON.