Paladin doesn't suck, 2 minute rotations just ruined combat

[Mikey_R]

This whole discussion has stemmed from the fact you want decision making in a job's rotation, with the implication that you would have to carry out this decision every single time you do the fight. This is compounded by the fact you use Chess and fighting games as an example where decision making has consequences and you need to keep making decisions for the whole game.

However, my claim is that you cannot have such a system in a PvE environment. Every boss rotation an mechanic will get solved and there will be a 'best' way to handle it.

In theory, you could turn to RNG to make the fights more like a PvP environment, where you have to make decisions based on what the boss is doing, however, I have explained that even there, they would have to put restrictions on what the boss can do and, depending on what the boss can RNG around, it could lead to a case where you are rewarded for being lucky, which is then frustration if you are unlucky.

However, you keep saying it is possible to construct a mechanic in a fight that will require on the fly decision making. This is not something that requires pages and pages of mock-up, this isn't something that needs to be finely tuned for the sake of this discussion. It is just a mechanic where I can't pre plan what to do and go down either option A or option B, depending on who get targeted, or the shape of the AoE based on the name. Ultimately, it would be a mechanic that has no solution, a complete mess of things going on, but even then, it will still be solved and the decision making will be lost.

[Shurrikhan]

<snip>

So, what, you're just back to just "complexity is illusory (could eventually be theoretically solved given sufficient information) so don't bother trying"? ???

You realize computers have since solved Chess, too, right? Yet it doesn't stop being a worthwhile and engaging game for those still playing it.

Ultimately, it would be a mechanic that has no solution, a complete mess

It would have no single perfect solution, but still have multiple nonetheless competitive ones. That does not make those decisions "a complete mess". The difference is simply that they're far more involved (and, typically, open to prior and/or external influence, from prior decisions and/or elements of relevant randomization in one's kit or one's kit). You hedged your bets on the first moment of decision, and it has cascading effects. An event outside your complete control occurs and now part of your hedging pays off and others do not and that has yet more cascading effects.

Will an AI that would beat the best of all players in every circumstance have the best solution? Sure. Will some players eventually learn their way past any complexity that can be given them? Sure. But that's not your average player, nor does that engagement need to be infinite (nothing is), only longer lasting than can be done with just base execution.

The difference is whether the solution is as simple as a independent and simple question (such as "Are there 3+ enemies?") vs. multiple criteria with one's decisions influencing future decisions.


With very few exceptions, XIV follows incredibly simplistic and static execution. It has quite a few buttons, but most of them do next to nothing to actually provide any real duration to engagement because it is so damn static and so much of it is just bloat (see XIV's "combos", so many of the attacks being long CDs -- let alone that one interacts with them almost purely on CD, per 2 minute bursts, or just in terms of "don't overcap" with 4+ GCDs of lenience).

And if that's great to you... cool? But to say that wanting anything more cognitively engaging could only ever devolve into a crapshoot seems fallacious at best.


Tl;dr:
If you just want simple (or, lots of buttons but to minimal lasting engagement or interactiveness with content) on the mere basis that you think any engagement beyond a minimum in execution would be a bloated waste, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'd much rather have all jobs offer at least as much as, say, Monk and BLM do, and fights to include learning the optimal kit interactions for those fights beyond, at most, which of 2-3 openers to use and maybe to remember not to slightly hold one burst cycle. I'd rather have multiple combos to choose from and which for which that choice follows non-rigid and contextually-varied priorities/sequences than just spend 7 buttons in fixed order on "do single-target", etc., etc.

[Mikey_R]

Tl;dr:
If you just want simple (or, lots of buttons but to minimal lasting engagement or interactiveness with content) on the mere basis that you think any engagement beyond a minimum in execution would be a bloated waste, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'd much rather have all jobs offer at least as much as, say, Monk and BLM do, and fights to include learning the optimal kit interactions for those fights beyond, at most, which of 2-3 openers to use and maybe to remember not to slightly hold one burst cycle. I'd rather have multiple combos to choose from and which for which that choice follows non-rigid and contextually-varied priorities/sequences than just spend 7 buttons in fixed order on "do single-target", etc., etc.

Whilst a fight will alter your rotation you have learned on a striking dummy, the next fight changes it again, and the next one changes it after that. The engagement comes from having to memorise and change how you do each fight. Whilst each fight is fixed, across the game it is not.

Also, you can have a job like that, do what you want, however not every job should be like that. Everyone is different, everyone likes different things. That is why we have jobs that play differently, that is why we have different roles. Saying every job should be a fluid, multi combo rotation is forcing every job into a small hole that will alienate some people. Some like a more rigid rotation after all.

Also, as for the whole chess thing, of course an Ai can easily beat a human, you can make an AI that will always beat you in a fighting game, but that isn't fun. Playing against a human is where the fun is because the fun comes from forcing your opponent into an unfavourable situation or putting pressure on them so that they can make a mistake and you capitalise on it. The only mistakes that happen in FFXIV are player made ones, however, the boss doesn't respond to your mistakes, it just continues as it was programmed. Entirely different circumstances, which is why it was a bad analogy.

[Shurrikhan]

Whilst a fight will alter your rotation you have learned on a striking dummy, the next fight changes it again, and the next one changes it after that. The engagement comes from having to memorise and change how you do each fight. Whilst each fight is fixed, across the game it is not.

Compared to most games, though, it is incredibly static and only typically affects one's opener. Thereafter, one simply hits their CDs on CD or remembers maybe once or twice per the odd/rare fight to hold CDs because the boss will jump away almost immediately.

Also, you can have a job like that, do what you want, however not every job should be like that.

The only change I've asked for across all jobs is that they have at least the macrorotational skill ceiling of MNK and BLM (or, say, ShB Paladin). More than just 2 openers, more openness to adjustment so that a given fight can produce actual differences. That's it.

And my focus each time has been equally or more on context, such as encounter design. Encounter design determines the ceiling of complexity; job design is the bottleneck by which that can be leveraged.

If most jobs are stuck in 10-step rigid loops with no ability to overclock or underclock their macrorotations, then there is far less that the encounter can do to actually produce any result that would change how you fight on a target dummy vs. how you would fight the given boss. That in turn removes any point of creating that variance in encounters because it doesn't produce anything engaging; what was a space that challenged uptime management becomes simply an arbitrary delay because there's nothing left to do with/around it.

FFXIV... the boss... just continues as it was programmed.

Because it's overly static, which is in turn because we removed most ways of leveraging variance into anything interesting in how we handle a given fight.

The boss doesn't need to depend on our mistakes. But there does need to be enough to a fight that optimizing it (A) isn't 90+% of the time the same as for a striking dummy and (B) isn't instantly obvious. But designing encounters towards that goal isn't going to be lucrative unless you also have job kits that are flexible enough to actually do something with that. The two are interlinked. The more hyper-rigid jobs (and here GCDs will matter a whole lot more than bankable oGCDs, as the latter essentially better let you avoid any complexity beyond "don't overcap" and level out difference in approach against the likes of short DPS or heal checks) you have, the less the flexible ones can be leveraged.

[Lyth]

the macrorotational skill ceiling

The usual pseudointellectualism aside, every job has fight-specific tricks that get used in optimization, and this has always been the case. The most interesting tricks are not usally about rotation so much as they are about positioning and movement. While this depends partially on us seeing more devious movement skills (Ingress/Egress is S tier, let's see more of this sort of thing in the future), you also need content in which tanks are actually required to position mobs correctly.

For starters, that means fights that aren't using either arena-sized hitboxes or that aren't just wall bosses. I realize that a big reason for this is that most melee don't trust tanks to position bosses correctly, and rightfully so. But it is a team based game, and I think that's the place to start adding more interesting variety to fights. Let tanks actually tank bosses, rather than being simplified melee with the occasional tankbuster-swap mechanic.

[Shurrikhan]

The usual pseudointellectualism aside, every job has fight-specific tricks that get used in optimization, and this has always been the case. The most interesting tricks are not usally about rotation

Claim: Most fights, for most jobs, rarely make any changes to one's rotation¹, or especially macrorotation², outside of one's choice of opener and holding CDs before boss jumps. Thereafter one just hits the CDs on CD outside of a (singular) pause per fight.

¹ Rotation - The order by which one performs what the job generally considers the primary "loop" of that job, such as from Demolish to Demolish, Fang and Claw (Chaos combo pt 5) to Fang and Claw or Chaotic Spring to Chaotic Spring, start of AF cycle to the start of the next AF cycle, etc.

² Macrorotation - The span of the largest possible loop of a given job --such as from Phantom Rush to Phantom Rush, Life of the Dragon to Life of the Dragon, etc.-- with whatever adjustments to smaller rotations therein may be needed to best leverage that larger loop or maintain it despite interference (downtime, death, etc.).

Response: Ahh, but every fight changes what you do... it just rarely changes your rotation.

???

When have I said we do nothing with movement? We do, sure, but the claim was about rotation. Unless that movement actually changes your attacks, too, and in a way you can actually account for or make use of in approaching your next burst cycle... it is literally not affecting your rotational complexity.

MNK? That movement can affect it rotationally and may affect setup for its next burst cycle.
SAM? That movement can affect it rotationally and will affect setup for its next burst cycle.
BLM? That movement can affect it rotationally and may affect setup for its next burst cycle.
NIN? That movement can affect it rotationally (but not in a way it need leverage for its next burst).
SMN? That movement may affect its initial sequence of summons.
PLD? That movement may affect its opener.

But for the rest? The movement either doesn't force any changes whatsoever (as per physical ranged outside of Heavensward) or the kit has no way or need to leverage/optimize it anyways.

For starters, that means fights that aren't using either arena-sized hitboxes or that aren't just wall bosses.

I realize that a big reason for this is that most melee don't trust tanks to position bosses correctly, and rightfully so. But it is a team based game, and I think that's the place to start adding more interesting variety to fights. Let tanks actually tank bosses, rather than being simplified melee with the occasional tankbuster-swap mechanic.

You can have both of these things, though, without movement having effect on the rotations of only 6 of 19 jobs (and rotational adjustment only on 3 of 19). The majority being affected is how we started, after all, just like more frequent manually positioned bosses and less regularly shaped arenas.