FF 14 has the worst dungeons

[Mawlzy]

DDR has really always been the dominant mechanic in the game, to be fair. The only real difference between the different difficulty tiers in this game is how difficult of a mental puzzle you have to solve (and how quickly you have to solve it) to perform the proper DDR. It's honestly impressive just how much cool stuff they've been able to do for so long with just "go stand in the right spot" being the only real mechanic resolution. But yeah it's finally starting to wear thin. Really worried M5S-M8S is just gonna be another 30 flavors of "this tell means pairs, this tell means spread, remember this stored mechanic for six minutes from now."

What I find impressive is that players have tolerated this same one-trick pony for so long.

[Mikey_R]

Mao thinkings another part why dungeons so borings is that boss fights becoming increasingly little more than DDR. Is scripted dances whats need only memorizing the dance steps and to has the mobility to do these steps. Is soulless fights with no randomness, no spirit of adventure. Is fights whats always the same. Mind numbings. Is why Mao subscription has been cancelled. Mao nots want pay for game whats now too borings for Mao.

But how are you going to make a fight that is completely RNG? You still need restrictions on when things can come out, don't want the possibility for a tank buster to be your only mechanic for a whole minute after all, or even just a minute of raid wides. Once you start adding restrictions to when things can happen, you start to notice patterns. Take this a step further i that you don't want the harder version of attacks to happen at the start of the fight and weaker ones at the end, we now have more structure, reducing the possibilities.

This is before we even mention the fights haven't been increasing more towards DDR, they have always been the same level of DDR. Knowing Titan Extreme's attack pattern so you know when to use your defensives, even Titan Hard has an easy way to remember when Mountain Buster is coming out (Landslide > Rock Buster > Mountain Buster in last phase only). Pick any fight and they are all the same mechanics happening in the same order.

So, what does a fight need to look like in order for you to consider it not 'DDR' like?

[Mawlzy]

But how are you going to make a fight that is completely RNG? You still need restrictions on when things can come out, don't want the possibility for a tank buster to be your only mechanic for a whole minute after all, or even just a minute of raid wides. Once you start adding restrictions to when things can happen, you start to notice patterns. Take this a step further i that you don't want the harder version of attacks to happen at the start of the fight and weaker ones at the end, we now have more structure, reducing the possibilities.

This is before we even mention the fights haven't been increasing more towards DDR, they have always been the same level of DDR. Knowing Titan Extreme's attack pattern so you know when to use your defensives, even Titan Hard has an easy way to remember when Mountain Buster is coming out (Landslide > Rock Buster > Mountain Buster in last phase only). Pick any fight and they are all the same mechanics happening in the same order.

So, what does a fight need to look like in order for you to consider it not 'DDR' like?

It's not difficult to randomize which attack occurs when, and some 14 fights actually do this.

I'd suggest the bigger issue is how the mechanics require you to respond. In many cases, the solution to the mechanic is "run to the safe spot." That is lazy design IMO, but likely inevitable given the job kits.

One solution is to give the jobs more crowd control and interrupt abilities, so that rather than DDR we have pseudo-random attacks that require countering instead of avoiding.

[Mikey_R]

It's not difficult to randomize which attack occurs when, and some 14 fights actually do this.

To a point, yes. But there does still need to be structure. It might be that attacks A-B-C happen between tank busters and whether it comes out as B-C-A or C-B-A does it really matter? You already said some fights do this, but that doesn't seem to matter to the person I responded to.

I'd suggest the bigger issue is how the mechanics require you to respond. In many cases, the solution to the mechanic is "run to the safe spot." That is lazy design IMO, but likely inevitable given the job kits.

Well, you aren't going to run to the unsafe spot are you? Joking aside, the only other thing there is is damage and how it comes out. Does it just hit hard, does it apply a bleed etc. Even if you want to add special status effects, you just deal with them as necessary by, going to the safe spot and healing through the damage.

One solution is to give the jobs more crowd control and interrupt abilities, so that rather than DDR we have pseudo-random attacks that require countering instead of avoiding.

The only real crowd control that works is stunning, there is no reason to apply anything else as the other major one, sleep, they get woken up by anything anyway, so it is a waste of that GCD. Interrupts can make trash packs more dangerous and should be used more, but they have to be careful with bosses. Even then though, it is a case of just interrupting when the bar flashes, easy to react to. This game does have 'pseudo random' attacks, it is going to attack a DPS, but we don't know which one. But again, how do you plan to counter it? Is it just a case of interrupt/stun it? Does it require sleep? At which point the calcs are done to determine whether losing that GCD on sleep is worth the damage loss, where, 90% of the time, as long as it doesn't kill/cause a death, it won't be worth it.

With stuns/interrupts on bosses, you do also have to consider, how is that going to mess the boss up? Ifrit Hard can still be stunned and with it, you can stun his almost room wide eruptions, making it a mechanic you can completely ignore. His most dangerous attack is now powerless. Similar things can be said about Interrupt. I have made a suggestion that stuns/interrupts could be reworked in some fights where it changes the damage profile of attacks, essentially tailoring the damage to your healer comp. This is then you working with your healers to make their life easier.

Regardless though, everything is still scripted.

[Valence]

DDR has really always been the dominant mechanic in the game, to be fair. The only real difference between the different difficulty tiers in this game is how difficult of a mental puzzle you have to solve (and how quickly you have to solve it) to perform the proper DDR. It's honestly impressive just how much cool stuff they've been able to do for so long with just "go stand in the right spot" being the only real mechanic resolution. But yeah it's finally starting to wear thin. Really worried M5S-M8S is just gonna be another 30 flavors of "this tell means pairs, this tell means spread, remember this stored mechanic for six minutes from now."

How long have you been playing the game? Because that's definitely not what I remember from ARR/HW gameplay.

( and don't tell me "they had AoE telegraphs too" )

But how are you going to make a fight that is completely RNG? You still need restrictions on when things can come out, don't want the possibility for a tank buster to be your only mechanic for a whole minute after all, or even just a minute of raid wides. Once you start adding restrictions to when things can happen, you start to notice patterns. Take this a step further i that you don't want the harder version of attacks to happen at the start of the fight and weaker ones at the end, we now have more structure, reducing the possibilities.

This is before we even mention the fights haven't been increasing more towards DDR, they have always been the same level of DDR. Knowing Titan Extreme's attack pattern so you know when to use your defensives, even Titan Hard has an easy way to remember when Mountain Buster is coming out (Landslide > Rock Buster > Mountain Buster in last phase only). Pick any fight and they are all the same mechanics happening in the same order.

So, what does a fight need to look like in order for you to consider it not 'DDR' like?

Nobody here is advocating for a full rng soup, which this game has never been.

[Eraden]

How long have you been playing the game? Because that's definitely not what I remember from ARR/HW gameplay.

( and don't tell me "they had AoE telegraphs too" )



Nobody here is advocating for a full rng soup, which this game has never been.

Is TRUE! Sunie and Jessa understand whats Mao talkings about. Is no need to make everythings completely random. Just get rid of hyper-tuned dance (little bits dance oks), tone down mechanics barfage, add in some random elements and now spirit of adventures is back. Fights will has much replay value! Is nots gonna be borings anymore! Mao also likes idea of adding more CC and Interrupts to some job kits to allow for more varied fights. Will also has effect of de-homogenizing jobs.

[Kohashi]

It's not difficult to randomize which attack occurs when, and some 14 fights actually do this.

I'd suggest the bigger issue is how the mechanics require you to respond. In many cases, the solution to the mechanic is "run to the safe spot." That is lazy design IMO, but likely inevitable given the job kits.

One solution is to give the jobs more crowd control and interrupt abilities, so that rather than DDR we have pseudo-random attacks that require countering instead of avoiding.

How would you suggest they completely randomize attacks and provide infinite variations? Please provide a coding solution and an example of how this can be achieved and integrated into the FF14 code backend. Who knows, maybe some dev will look at your post and implement your solution into the code itself.

It looks like you have this solution since it's so easy. This is your time to shine!

[Eraden]

How would you suggest they completely randomize attacks and provide infinite variations? Please provide a coding solution and an example of how this can be achieved and integrated into the FF14 code backend. Who knows, maybe some dev will look at your post and implement your solution into the code itself.

It looks like you have this solution since it's so easy. This is your time to shine!

Mao gives example that Mao gave little bits while ago. Boss has phase where hims planning to do attack. Dice is rolled. On 1-3, Boss summons bunch of mooks to join fight. On 4-6, Boss throws rock at party member outside of melee range. When rock lands, is begin slow roll out of arena. If players bust rock before it rolls out, is award them with Gils because is turn out that rock is actually Geode full of gems. If this phase happens on average 4-8 times per fight, is already, just this one random element by itself, make for 2 to the power of 4 to 8, possible different fights. If add one or two more random elements, can has much MUCH more variations! Is not take much to make fights exciting agains!

[Mawlzy]

How would you suggest they completely randomize attacks and provide infinite variations? Please provide a coding solution and an example of how this can be achieved and integrated into the FF14 code backend. Who knows, maybe some dev will look at your post and implement your solution into the code itself.

It looks like you have this solution since it's so easy. This is your time to shine!

I've suggested no such design, as the quote of mine you've embedded clearly demonstrates.

There's a broad spectrum between DDR monotony and infinite chaos. I think it would be good for the game if we unglued the needle from the DDR end.

[Daralii]

I've suggested no such design, as the quote of mine you've embedded clearly demonstrates.

There's a broad spectrum between DDR monotony and infinite chaos. I think it would be good for the game if we unglued the needle from the DDR end.

They'd need to accept that some parse chasers would be unhappy, because them moving the needle slightly for one mechanic(Alarm Pheromones) caused a lot of complaints about lost uptime.