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

[Shibi]

I can certainly understand what the OP is saying. It's easy to say "just learn by doing it!" or "trial and error!" but when you're running content that's more than a couple hours old there's often an immediate expectation that everyone already knows everything and sometimes there isn't room for "trial and error." Even in the most hardcore content if it's more than a week old there are many people who just don't accept trial and error. Idiots are going to idiot, but Square could do more to ease the learning process.

That said, I'm not really sure a pop up or tool tip is the right way to handle it. Ideally I would like to see a more active tutorial system like an expansion of the Hall of the Novice.

Thank you for saying that, and I like the idea of a halls of novice for each mechanic. As a healer when I die, everyone dies, so the pressure feels greater. A wipe is ok, with a gracious party, less so though when one earns their own post in "tales from the duty finder" as "I just had a run with the worst AST ever".

I watch youtubes before a new instance which helps, I try to get my squadron through it so I can get a feel for the area, but a Hall of the Novice encounter that one could play to see the new markers and learn how to get through them would be so amazingly awesome.

[kaynide]

One player will always be able to cause a wipe. A DPS can mistakenly or deliberately take out the group's healer, paving the way to their doom. A tank can cleave the entire group, or not separate their add from another group's and they're done for. A healer can tunnel vision at a very inopportune time which leads to a player death that snowballs into a DPS check not being met.

Not all, but a ton of wipes can be attributed to single derp from one player that cascades into a giant mess. What is important is to not look at it that way, but rather the group as a whole who could not respond and improvise accordingly when things don't go as planned.

I wasn’t referring to standard/normal wipe causes, but rather knowing things like where to drop meteors or the like. Ozma in the 3.0 raid series is a good example, or Cid in 4.0.

That is to say, a single PC gets targeted with some marker and if they don’t know what to do with it, everybody dies.

[Sheldinn]

I think it'd be good for universal things to be explained to new players a little better. Stuff like the stack marker, soak markers, aoe distant marker (or whatever you want to call the one where you run away from the center) and things like that which we seen in many different fights. Some are obvious but others aren't always as clear. I feel some things we may take for granted as players who have been playing a while. For example I remember back when i joined early on in ARR one of the things that took me a while to learn/get used to was how the timing for the generic, orange aoe markers work. I was frustrated that I was getting hit by attacks that i felt I had avoided. I didnt know that it "snapshotted" where i was when the cast ends to determine if i got hit or not as opposed to where i was when the animation/damage actually happened. Obviously I figured it out eventually but it would have been nice to have it explained or an optional tutorial or something.

Maybe some of this is already covered in the hall of the novice stuff. Wasn't around when I was new so idk what is actually taught there.

However, I don't think more unique mechanics should be explained. I'm definitely just a casual who watches guide video to learn strats, but i imagine one of the fun things about being the first to try new hardcore/endgame content is figuring out how the fight works and how to deal with the various mechanics. Some things should definitely stay as is with the trial and error method.

[Fynlar]

These fights are specifically designed that way; you are meant to fumble around and die a few times until you learn.

It is the only way these fights maintain any semblance of challenge for newcomers. If it told you exactly how to handle a mechanic, what would be the point of designing the mechanic?

[Quintessa]

Though it does make me wonder why there was never any stackable damage down debuffs?

It feels like enfeebling wasn't meant to be a thing in this game. Just dots that gradually reduce HP, or reduce damage by a percentage. None of vulnerability debuffing that can go up to 5 or something for 3.5x damage or whatever. Me thinks they don't want fights being downed too fast.

[AduroT]

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.

I played this game for over a year before I learned you could just turn away to avoid AoEs with that eyeball. I just happened to read it while looking up the fox lady fate and how to trigger that.

[AduroT]

The inconsistency of markers is something I could consider a valid complaint about encounter design.

Stack AoEs can be indicated by several different markers and not just the obvious "move in" arrows...assuming they're indicated at all and you're not forced to assume that untelegraphed mechanic that killed someone was a stack because of how much damage it did.

They've still been adding new types of markers for existing mechanics types (The pulsing arrow for chasing AOEs and the swirling red "caution" indicator for ranged tank busters springing to mind), so I think it would be nice if they'd go back to older fights and adjust the markers for the sake of consistency.

I would definitely love it if they went back and updated the indicators on old fights to make things more consistent.

[Seraphor]

designed to make you fail by not telling you what you are supposed to do

This is exactly the point.
You die, you figure out what killed you, you try again. It's a learning curve.
Not everything is designed to be aced on your first attempt.

This is okay in low level dungeons because you can just derp through mechanics and figure it out eventually...

I understand if it's max level end-game content like big raids and big bosses where you need to plan and work with your team to clear stuff...

So it's ok in low level stuff, and it's ok in hard end-game stuff, where is exactly is it not ok?

[Seraphor]

I would definitely love it if they went back and updated the indicators on old fights to make things more consistent.

The one that got me is the red arrow above your head in Orbonne's Ultima fight, which means "share it with at least one other person who as the same marker".
However this exact same icon, but with a larger AoE circle, is used in the last boss of Doma castle, to indicate an AoE that you don't share with other people.
And that's in the same expansion!

[SamRF]

These fights are specifically designed that way; you are meant to fumble around and die a few times until you learn.

It is the only way these fights maintain any semblance of challenge for newcomers. If it told you exactly how to handle a mechanic, what would be the point of designing the mechanic?

Personally find it much more fun to read a text guide first and try to apply that in the game, looking for same patterns you read (not always easy converting text) than to get your dead ass carried by a random PUG. I agree it is fun when the whole party doesn't know what they're doing and you're wiping and progressing, as you're discussing strats. But this is rarely the case in Duty Finder. At least for me as I usually complete (normal) content later after patch release.