Thoughts on changes made to the game

[KenZentra]

But again - it was always this way. You have been playing Dance Dance Revolution the entire time, apparently without realizing it.

I dont think it has. Sure, we've always dodged AoEs, but we've had other mechanics in harder difficulties that didn't have a "Go here to dodge thing or prevent overlap".

Ifrit had tethers you had to deal with, and constant knockbacks put onto healers. As well as, a tank swap that was really up to how much the tanks could handle before needing to switch. And of course the Nails that you can defeat at your own pace, depending on how much the healers can handle. You dodge AoEs of course, but to sum it up, the largest emphasis was on managing buffs, debuffs, and adds rather than dodging AoEs.
The same can be said of nearly of all of ARR as a whole, and a fair bit of HW.

Zodiark and most of Rubicante (for current expansion examples) can be cleared with a dorito on someone's head that knows where to go with everyone else being blind.

[Mikey_R]

Ifrit had tethers you had to deal with,

Which amounted to just staying near each other, then, consider you always killed the nails in a certain order, it really wasn't that hard to do.

constant knockbacks put onto healers.

Which amounted to them standing in a certain spot to not be annoying.

As well as, a tank swap that was really up to how much the tanks could handle before needing to switch.

Normally 3, however, he does sometimes do 2 debuffs quickly one after the other, which is why you end up with 4 sometimes. Considering 5 is death, 3 is the best to swap at.

And of course the Nails that you can defeat at your own pace, depending on how much the healers can handle.

Until you take too long and he kills you from enrage.

You dodge AoEs of course, but to sum it up, the largest emphasis was on managing buffs, debuffs, and adds rather than dodging AoEs.

Of which buffs/debuffs/doing any mechanics comes down to solving what the devs are asking of you, then you just do the dance that is asked of you.

The same can be said of nearly of all of ARR as a whole, and a fair bit of HW.

Sorry, but all fights are DDR. You can try and say otherwise, but is is a case of, if you have X go to Y.

[Sindele]

I dont think it has. Sure, we've always dodged AoEs, but we've had other mechanics in harder difficulties that didn't have a "Go here to dodge thing or prevent overlap".

But at the same time as Ifrit: Garuda, Titan, ADS, Twintania...

Most mechanics, once strategy optimization takes place, get reduced down to choreography. And to be fair: it's hard to avoid this between the 8 person limit and the underpinnings of XIV's system design. (For better or worse, this is also a consequence of the healing paradigm and intimately tied to a lot of the healer complaints in recent years, particularly after homogenization broke the back of AST cards and green DPS in general.)