How would you *fix* battle content?

[Kirutsuki]

Make fights require skill instead of perfect memorization.

Sadly even games that do require skill ultimately boil down to perfect memorization.
But randomness in enemy AI does allow skill expression, or atleast expression of experience.

I would wish more trials and raids would include a bit of randomness to what mechanic they are going to use on each cycle.
that alone would help a bit even on a tab targeting game.

[AmiableApkallu]

I would wish more trials and raids would include a bit of randomness to what mechanic they are going to use on each cycle.

I was doing the On the Hunt CE in Occult Crescent (a.k.a., the Oracle CE) when the server decided to skip 11 beats and start the fight off with the combination of rotating line and circle AoEs… going off at double speed. It was absolutely hilarious and turned what would have been my millionth boring run of the CE into something memorable.

[Kirutsuki]

Yup I bet. And there's so many mechanics they could just put all of them into like a package that bosses can randomly choose one (not that we need more packaged content),
but the notion that some generic boss could throw us a mechanic from like an ARR dungeon sounds incredibly fun to me.

Or doing like an ARR dungeon and suddenly you gotta solve numerations for no reason. :'D

[XtremePrime]

Sadly even games that do require skill ultimately boil down to perfect memorization.
But randomness in enemy AI does allow skill expression, or atleast expression of experience.

I would wish more trials and raids would include a bit of randomness to what mechanic they are going to use on each cycle.
that alone would help a bit even on a tab targeting game.

On normal atleast, it still needs to keep the fight intro where they have a fixed pattern to allow new players to learn what a mechanic does in a "safe" showcase, and once all mechanics are presented it can start going randomly somewhat.
But I don't think just randomness in the cycle is enough to add skill, just which part of the memorization script I need to account for and show that I'm paying attention

1. Some form of job "specialization system" to give jobs identity.
   
   White Mage could specialize into Green Mage or Illusionist OR stay as White Mage.
   choosing either one would give you 2 abilities that are highly specific to situations, but do not add damage,or more heals or mitigation.
   

Honestly I really like this idea in particular. We already have something like this in PvP except it's role based instead of job based, but I think it'd bring a great deal of personality to each person's job if they can get to choose between a few abilities!

I... Cannot find this tab button on my controller... That being said, targeting isn't 'that bad' of an issue. There are many ways to target, even different options in the menu. I'm all for other options, but tab and the f keys aren't your only options. Soft targeting is a thing... At least for controllers.

I don't have an issue with the tab-targeting (as opposed to skill targeting where every swing has a collision mesh on the weapon's trajectory or arrows are actual projectiles as in other games). The issue is regarding how do you add skill checks on attacking to a game where you're always targeting the enemy and can't miss your attack swing (unless underleveled).