Mao has question for everyones about DDR-style boss fights.

[Jeeqbit]

It's so sad that they actually used to have it. Little moments like seeing the monk saying "thanks " in chat after I send him a goad made my day.

That's just completely gone these days.

The DDR raid design is honestly also just bad for actually playing together frankly. By Endwalker, I felt that raiding is just waiting for the slowest player to pick up the mechanic. It really breeds a toxic mindset because the game punishes you for other players' mistakes. In HW and SB I remember raiding feeling like trying to contribute to coordinate and play as a team. There's a lot more "wholesome" team gameplay with all the synergistic actions that jobs had. It felt like coming together to defeat a boss by helping each other. Body checks have honestly ruined raiding for me.

It's true for sure that in Stormblood, it was rampant to see people share MP, help manage aggro and regen TP for eachother, or affect others' GCD Speed (Astrologians). This happened in dungeons and roulettes constantly in Stormblood, and it felt good that you were all affecting eachother. And let's add to that, that healers actually mattered in dungeons and you still relied on them as a tank. It was for sure a thing that made normal roulettes actually fun then, because of those dynamic factors where everyone was buffing eachother. A big one was Mana Shift, where people lent their MP to rezzers to help recover from a near-wipe.

It had become such a big thing that SE obviously saw it as a problem and cracked right down on it, and hard, I assume "because a casual player might not understand how to do all that and find it too complex" and to make it easier to balance jobs be reducing external influences.

It's pretty true that almost all that's left of that is lending a tank buff to people to save them before a cast completes. Raid-wide mit or Reprisal is fun too, when the party survives with 1% HP and you know that decision saved them. Regardless though, it does still feel like we're all working to overcome a raid, since healers are doing their job healing/mitting, tanks are doing their's tanking/mitting, etc.

Personally for me, the biggest effect of them removing all that was making roulettes less fun. I always felt like raiding was waiting for the slowest person to pick up the mechs even back then. People joining my party when they weren't at the prog point I asked? They did that. People joining my party and being unable to heal well? They did that too.

But what helped make raids feel more synergistic then was also just having different responsibilities more of the time. I mean, if you have 8 towers and you all stand in them, you're all doing the same mechanic. Yet it was widly different from that in the past. Each role had a unique job and had to do it well.

A5S had MT handle the boss, OT handle the adds, and people assigned to monkey duty. A9S had people handle the adds, the alarum, dragging batteries to adds, the tank had to take the boss and aim it right, the OT had to take the add, and those autos hurt so keeping up the physical damage down helped. A10S had people assigned to passing preys, the MT taking the boss and the OT taking the add, someone on spike button duty.

In contrast, everyone's doing basically the same thing in M1S and M2S.

Actually I found it better these days, players seem to more calm. Compare to HW era, Alexander Savage

Gonna agree. I mean, there have always been lots of chill players, and there will always be toxicity, but my PF experience in Stormblood was "1-3 wipes disband". Now it's more often the case that if we wipe for an hour they are still there. Something just kinda shifted in Shadowbringers.

[Mikey_R]

It's true for sure that in Stormblood, it was rampant to see people share MP, help manage aggro and regen TP for eachother, or affect others' GCD Speed (Astrologians). This happened in dungeons and roulettes constantly in Stormblood, ..

No they didn't. Unless this is a stark difference between the EU playerbase and the NA playerbase that noone is aware of. Most jobs hates AST's Arrow as yo ujust ran out of resources faster, coupled with the fact noone used the party resource generators, made content feel incredibly bad when you just have to stop attacking due to no fault of your own.

As for the topic as a whole, I am still in the camp of all fights have been 'DDR', whatever that happens to mean, how people define it is so vague, it can apply to everything. At a set point in a fight, you do thing, welcome to everything ever. Let's have something that is a bit more descriptive to actually narrow down what the issues are, what mechanics in the past did not follow this 'DDR' format and why they do not count towards 'DDR'.

As for some things said in this topic, let's go through them, remembering all of them happen at the same point throughout a fight:

Forsaken 1 in O8S, the whole shielding before the debuff goes up to soak the meteors is not needed. If you have the correct number of players in each AoE, the meteors do ZERO damage. The reason for the pre-shielding is so that you can more quickly soak the damage from the tethered heads for more uptime, but you do technically have time between the meteors and the heads to sort it out. The pre-shielding is just an optimisation for the mechanic.

As for the other videos in that same post, that says nothing and doesn't prove or disprove a point either way. You need to explain why they are not classed as a 'DDR' mechanic so that an actual discussion can be had.

There was something fun about dealing with Chirada and Suparna in different groups, or fighting in Bahamut's giant hand and doing that weird Neurolink/Conflag mechanic. Always found some of those weird mechanics to be interesting and thematic. Not sure we'll have those again in the future.

But in the definition of 'DDR' that everyone uses, these things happen at set points and you deal with them the same way.

It was done moderately so far but I do feel that recently those have seen a wild resurgence, notably in Criterions like with Moko the Restless or Statice (those two bosses absolutely destroyed me, I am genuinely unable to follow which is something that has never happened to me before in challenging content), but also the new NM raids.

But isn't changing how things are telegraphed a good thing? By getting rid of environmental tells you are restricting how these things can be communicated. In a way, this would 'simplify' fights and make things feel samey. If you want things to be different, you need to mix things up. Even similar mechanics can feel different depending on how they are presented. Take M4 and the front/back laser memorisation and then take M5 with the 8 frogs on the edge. Both mechanics tell you what is happening before it goes off, the difference is, you have to memorise the canons but not the frogs, as the frogs stay around. They are still ultimately the same thing, stand either here or there, but I bet they do feel different to parse and execute because of the difference.

How about line AoEs that cross leaving safe squares between them, compared to, again, M5 where alternating squares on the dancefloor are the danger zones. With the line AoEs, you tend to want to go to the areas diagonally from your current safe square, with the dancefloor, it is the adjacent ones. Same concept, slightly different execution.

This also leads into something that bugs me a lot and that is the 'all fights are just mechanics X,Y Z etc.' Of course they are, those are the basic building blocks of any fight, it's like me complaining that all jobs are composed of GCDs and oGCDs and are therefore all the same. They aren't. They all use the tools in different ways and this has always been the case. As for some mechanics that don't get used often or at all in recent times, you have to ask why? Is it because they were bad mechanics, is it because the players didn't like having to stop their rotations to deal with it? (which would be a bigger issue in today's job profiles than it was back in HW).

TL;DR, Let's be more specific about what we actually mean when we say 'all fights are DDR', how and why, so that the actual issue can be addressed and not the vague sentiment that means nothing.

[Jeeqbit]

No they didn't. Unless this is a stark difference between the EU playerbase and the NA playerbase that noone is aware of.

Oh, well I am saying the NA experience. Maybe EU just didn't use their abilities much?

Most jobs hates AST's Arrow as yo ujust ran out of resources faster

I mean yes, but the point is you could use it and affect eachother and ASTs did use that stuff.

[Mikey_R]

I mean yes, but the point is you could use it and affect eachother and ASTs did use that stuff.

I think the thing to take away from increasing the GCD speed was that not everything was beneficial in all circumstances and in the case of Arrow, it depleted resources fast. If it didn't do that, it wouldn't be as much of an issue, though in todays metagame, it would misalign GCDs and make things not line up, making things feel bad that way. In my opinion there does need to be a massive shift in how they want to design jobs so that things like AST cards can come back, but making sure they are all a benefit in some way or another without a downside.

[Kazuke_Miso]

Forsaken 1 in O8S, the whole shielding before the debuff goes up to soak the meteors is not needed.

If you're going to spread misinformation you should at least have cleared the fight back then. The towers do very light damage.

And since you conveniently dismissed the whole post about DDR raids by laser focusing on a (non-existent) minor error, I will do the same to your idiotic post.

Most jobs hates AST's Arrow as you just ran out of resources faster, coupled with the fact noone used the party resource generators, made content feel incredibly bad when you just have to stop attacking due to no fault of your own.

This is a complete skill issue except on jobs like MCH. Fey wind and Arrows were optimal play and good players knew how to exploit them effectively.

Honestly I don't even understand why people who clearly have not done the content that people are discussing (O8S) chime in.

[Mikey_R]

If you're going to spread misinformation you should at least have cleared the fight back then. The towers do very light damage.

And since you conveniently dismissed the whole post about DDR raids by laser focusing on a (non-existent) minor error, I will do the same to your idiotic post.

Try again. I checked the mechanics by reviewing Mizzteq and Mr Happy. Mizzteq never says you have to shield before hand and Mr Happy specifically states that the meteors do no damage if you have enough party members in them:

https://youtu.be/pZD7pOd4Gzg?si=lH7yTGaII5hXZE3J&t=905

To further this, the guide you linked can be interpreted as the heads doing damage, but I'm not here for vague wording, conveniently, there is also a video attached, a Ninja PoV as it happens. Go to Forsaken 1, the only buffs on the Ninja are Protect and Plenary Indulgence, the Path of Light hits and it does ZERO damage. Here is that point in the video, starting at the point just before their HP reduces to 1.

In this case, I do believe I have provided enough evidence to say, without a doubt, The Path of Light does ZERO damage.

If you don't want to provide explanations as to why your other videos are not classed as DDR, I am just going to ignore them. Evidence without explanation is not evidence at all.

This is a complete skill issue except on jobs like MCH. Fey wind and Arrows were optimal play and good players knew how to exploit them effectively.

Honestly I don't even understand why people who clearly have not done the content that people are discussing (O8S) chime in.

The problem is, you are clearly looking at things from the point of view of a static group, where players know what they are doing. However, these things also need to work in a random group setting and being unable to attack because your TP regener didn't regen your TP, or you just did not get randomly matched with one, was a problem. This is only made worse by the fact random groups are, by their nature, going to do less damage than a static group, so fights take longer, which gives more chance for this to happen.

[Kazuke_Miso]

Try again. I checked the mechanics by reviewing Mizzteq and Mr Happy. Mizzteq never says you have to shield before hand and Mr Happy specifically states that the meteors do no damage if you have enough party members in them:

https://youtu.be/pZD7pOd4Gzg?si=lH7yTGaII5hXZE3J&t=905

To further this, the guide you linked can be interpreted as the heads doing damage, but I'm not here for vague wording, conveniently, there is also a video attached, a Ninja PoV as it happens. Go to Forsaken 1, the only buffs on the Ninja are Protect and Plenary Indulgence, the Path of Light hits and it does ZERO damage. Here is that point in the video, starting at the point just before their HP reduces to 1.

In this case, I do believe I have provided enough evidence to say, without a doubt, The Path of Light does ZERO damage.

If you don't want to provide explanations as to why your other videos are not classed as DDR, I am just going to ignore them. Evidence without explanation is not evidence at all.



The problem is, you are clearly looking at things from the point of view of a static group, where players know what they are doing. However, these things also need to work in a random group setting and being unable to attack because your TP regener didn't regen your TP, or you just did not get randomly matched with one, was a problem. This is only made worse by the fact random groups are, by their nature, going to do less damage than a static group, so fights take longer, which gives more chance for this to happen.

You are right on that particular minor point that the towers don't do damage, but you still literally ignored the entire point on how they used to make more than mere DDR mechanics. The Forsaken 1 heal check isn't just about soaking towers. You seized on that minor point to ignore the entire example and post.

Maybe if you have ever actually done any Savage content you would intuitively understand how encounter design has changed, but there's no point in trying to convince a white knight when they peddle in debate parlor tricks like using an irrelevant mistake to discredit the whole argument. You are clearly not arguing in good faith, and your posts on this forum have been white knight defense after white knight defense, so I encourage EVERYONE to not bother responding to you in good faith either.

[Mikey_R]

You are right on that particular minor point that the towers don't do damage, but you still literally ignored the entire point on how they used to make more than mere DDR mechanics. The Forsaken 1 heal check isn't just about soaking towers. You seized on that minor point to ignore the entire example and post.

The whole point of the original post was that it was an interesting heal check, in that you had to pre-shield before incurable was applied. This was due to the fact the shields were needed to soak damage that you had no, or very little time to heal between incurable falling off and the damage being taken.

The initial point that the pre-shielding was necessary is not true. Taking damage in a tight timeframe from incurable falling off was not true. The only damage going out after the HP reduction was from the tethered adds and the damage from those can be delayed, giving healers time to heal and shield as needed.

Granted, it is a good strat to try and preserve uptime for melee DPS or allowing casters to stand still for longer, but that wasn't the point being made. The point being made was the pre-shielding was the intended solution for the mechanic, which is not the case.

However, this still doesn't explain why it is not a DDR mechanic. Healers heal, you stand in the safe spot, mechanic resolves itself, heal ready for tether heads (which are just AoEs at the end of the day). What I have just described can be attributed to many things in the game, so why is it different to something else?

Now, it has been a while since I have done an on release savage fight (Back in ShB if you must know), but this also brings up another point, why it is only savage content that apparently has mechanics that are being classed as 'not DDR'? What about other pieces of content? If it is the case it only appears in savage content, then why are we judging the current fight design based on normal and not on the savage version? Surely, if it is only savage that gets the non DDR mechanics, then it is only fair to wait until then?

I am also not trying to trick you. My main thing has always been to try and get a definition of what it means for a mechanic or fight to not be classed as DDR. We obviously aren't seeing the same things, so you need to tell me what you see and why you see it, otherwise, this discussion is going nowhere and I can only conclude you have nothing to back up your statements.

Also, I am fully aware this guy is likely to be a Titanman alt (showing all the classic signs), however, I am using this as an opportunity to highlight how not to do things. It is fine to disagree on things, it is fine to have a discussion, infact, disagreeing on things and explaining why you have your point of view. This helps to dig into what the actual issue is and give more meaningful feedback as opposed to the vague statement of 'DDR', which could mean anything.

[Valence]

No they didn't. Unless this is a stark difference between the EU playerbase and the NA playerbase that noone is aware of. Most jobs hates AST's Arrow as yo ujust ran out of resources faster, coupled with the fact noone used the party resource generators, made content feel incredibly bad when you just have to stop attacking due to no fault of your own.

Even if Kazuke already addressed that bit, I'll do it too because sometimes I do actually wonder if you played through anything before SHB, or if we played into a different timeline.

I played on NA during HW and SB and statics or people used the Arrow all the time, same as they opened with Fey Wind all the time, etc. Obviously there were limits like Enhanced Arrow which was kinda trolling someone, but that's an outlier.
In SB Arrow was a gain on almost all jobs (bar MCH), and they didn't run out of TP.
In HW some were definitely a big no-no (MNK, PLD...), but some could take it, probably more than we think depending on the comp, notably having a rphys (like in all parties, some had double rphys due to the meta) would allow a lot of TP sustain, which was required past a point in any fight lasting longer than a dungeon's. The actual reason ASTs dodged Extended royal road cards like Arrow and Spear was that Balance was just better, and Spear was absolute garbage in HW (but solid in SB).

I don't remember running out of resources that much due to other players failure even in casual content for the very reason that casual content was also a lot more forgiving than savage on resource management (except AoE in dungeons but that's another trivia). I do even remember complete randoms in dungeons manashifting away, or even goading. Uncommon, but not totally non existent either, and that was just a bonus, the run worked perfectly fine without. That's frankly a skill issue.

This also leads into something that bugs me a lot and that is the 'all fights are just mechanics X,Y Z etc.' Of course they are, those are the basic building blocks of any fight, it's like me complaining that all jobs are composed of GCDs and oGCDs and are therefore all the same. They aren't. They all use the tools in different ways and this has always been the case. As for some mechanics that don't get used often or at all in recent times, you have to ask why? Is it because they were bad mechanics, is it because the players didn't like having to stop their rotations to deal with it? (which would be a bigger issue in today's job profiles than it was back in HW).

And how many more blocks have we lost over time? All the ones that aren't about players running all over the place and jumping into the safe spot. You keep asking the question, we keep giving you examples, but you always come back to ask the same question anyway. Why should we bother more?

The problem is, you are clearly looking at things from the point of view of a static group, where players know what they are doing. However, these things also need to work in a random group setting and being unable to attack because your TP regener didn't regen your TP, or you just did not get randomly matched with one, was a problem. This is only made worse by the fact random groups are, by their nature, going to do less damage than a static group, so fights take longer, which gives more chance for this to happen.

The random group excuse is literally why we got where we are today, with the complete removal of skill expression. What's next, we removed tanking/healing failure points in casual content, what is left to remove, since the only thing that remains to trip people up is encounter mechanics?



Edit: I already gave other examples of non DDR mechanics or fights in another thread. I do not especially expect you to engage this in good faith beyond obtuse denial, but here you go. I don't think SB encounters are great examples of it, since SB is precisely where they started seriously remolding encounters to their modern solutions. The DDR was less a matter of "is this DDR?" rather than a matter of scale, and uniformity/homogenization/macdonaldization, which was a lot less prevalent back then.

[Kozh]

Obviously there were limits like Enhanced Arrow which was kinda trolling someone, but that's an outlier.

Just want to tell funny story, but when I was new to the game, I accidentally hard trolling a DF Monk by giving them Enhanced Arrow. Which then I extended the duration with Time Dilation, because my noob brain thought gotta go fast = more dps

Then I saw their TP vanished lmao (thankfully it's just trash pull on Sohr Khai)



Man, I miss my RNG cards....