What exactly did the improved encounter design do?

[Bru_Tus]

At first it was supposed to be coming in 7.0, then that got corrected to mean that it is supposed to be coming in 7.2.

We now have half an expansion's worth of "improved encounter design", but genuinely, how the hell is this any different than before? Take the latest extreme trial for example. Nothing in that fight is novel, other than arguably yet another round of dynamo vs chariot, but you add a wild charge to it. And the rest of the fight is genuinely not even worth mentioning. It's 2026 and we still can't move beyond the pair/light-party read-the-mechanic-name-to-resolve-correctly paradigm. In Stormblood, the devs actually tried new things out, like Byakko's orb dodges, even if it was gimmicky.

The newest dungeon is even worse. It's almost like we have regressed since 7.0. Compare the 7.5 dungeon to Tender Valley. Tender Valley actually dared to stack multiple mechanics together (for example, bombs through pipes + spreads) and is faster-paced than whatever snoozefest there was in 7.5 -- puppet manipulation is a literal 11-second cast.

As for the Savages, I see we have just completely given up on anything other than "figure out what debuffs you have, then go to the assigned spot for your role/debuff". It was first novel in A8S and O4S, maybe O12S, but it's like we literally cannot design anything other than memorize-the-spot/use-a-second-monitor Hello World-style mechanics for the last turn. Well, I guess this time it has the barest of camouflage, in that instead of the debuffs appearing on your status bar, you have a clone storing your "debuff". *clap*

So when I see people being hyped by 8.0, I really have to wonder what the hell SE has done in the last two expansions to deserve any benefit of the doubt? Don't get me wrong, the evolved job concept can in principle be the shakeup that FF14 needs, and this time it actually looks meatier than all of the 'promises' they gave in the last two expansions. But we have, at this point, a decade of "shakeups" that pan out to be nothing consequential.

[Wasselin]

I don't think it's radically different or was meant to be. What I see the difference is: there used to be a very long "learning" phase at the beginning of fights where they would very slowly introduce all the bosses mechanics before they started overlapping. This meant on replay, since bosses die faster, you never even got past that learning phase. That's now much shorter.

People are excited for 8.0 though because they can only change fight mechanics so much without also changing the way jobs work.

[Jeeqbit]

I know what it did...

• Unique add areas and personal mechanics from Heavensward (such as Necron's)
• Smaller hitboxes (this was confirmed by them, but is rather obvious too)
• Willing to make it hard to have full uptime again (which they moved away from in Endwalker, this was confirmed by them)
• No longer making mechanics obvious; expectation is you wipe a few times first like ARR/HW. Occult Crescent is an example where most people couldn't understand what was going on, racked up vuln stacks at first and then slowly figured out the mechanics over time. This actually happened with the Normal Raids as well.

As far as dungeons go, I think they do it a little, in a gentle way, where you can guess the mechanics as a veteran player but sometimes it's not entirely clear still. They are mostly willing to do it in side content, and only 2 of the dungeons are side content.

As for stack/spread and "go to safe spot", those are some of the building blocks of fights. Like lego bricks. They aren't gonna get rid of the building blocks. I see fights for their creative whole, not for their constituent parts, so I'm able to enjoy them. But there do seem people that just reduce it to "lego bricks" and can't see a fight any other way, regardless of what they build with them.

[Starrya]

This feels like another made an alt to try to rage bait people post, so I'm just going to point out the parts of this I agree with for fun.

Maybe it's too much to ask for in EX, but I would like to see the boss need to be moved around more. I think there is a lot they could do there that hasn't really been explored, even if we do stick with spread/stack dynamo/chariots. In the current EX, the boss starts by doing a raidwide and teleporting to the center, where he stays until a scripted teleport to indicate the intermission, after which he does *two* raidwides, teleports to the center, and stays there until enrage. I can definitely see that getting a bit dull. It's virtually a wall boss at that point.

No one shall besmirch Chort, but I agree that Tender Valley is probably close to that sweet spot of not having anything as miserable as Strayborough Deadwalk boss 1, but not having anything quite as dull as underkeep boss 2.

M9S kind of missed the mark for me. After M1 and M5 were quite strong, it came off as a bit weak. I would not have been upset if reaching 16 stacks instantly triggered enrage, and the torture machine/bat sections were a fun frantic section, but the rest was quite slow and samey. M11 had a LOT of weapons to start. Having to do essentially that same thing four separate times did feel like too much, and wasn't nearly as fun for ranged as it was for melee. The dimension stuff from M12 almost felt like the kind of thing FRU was missing. Having to figure out a puzzle between different "timelines" instead of "don't kill this crystal" could have made a real difference, but in M12 the clones were a great touch, but the dimension thing was kind of out of left field and didn't feel like it fit as well there.

Like Yoshi P said, he played a game where they shook it up a bit too hard, and the game crashed and burned. While this game certainly could use the glow up, it is understandable that they might not be willing to go too ham for fear of jumping the shark. This isn't 2013 anymore, and even though the discourse might try to convince us otherwise, SE is not nearly as desperate as they were when they let him blow up the original game. I hope that evolved jobs are engaging enough to keep the game interesting, but especially as a PLD main, I suspect it's going to feel awfully similar.

[Fawkes]

• No longer making mechanics obvious

I think they did too good (bad?) of a job at this one. There's some bosses like Kirin and the Monster Hunter collab that like turn inside their own hitbox when doing the tell for a half-room swipe. Whenever Kirin did his tail attack everybody would always run to his left side instead of in front of him.

[Bru_Tus]

I know what it did...

• Unique add areas and personal mechanics from Heavensward (such as Necron's)
• Smaller hitboxes (this was confirmed by them, but is rather obvious too)
• Willing to make it hard to have full uptime again (which they moved away from in Endwalker, this was confirmed by them)
• No longer making mechanics obvious; expectation is you wipe a few times first like ARR/HW. Occult Crescent is an example where most people couldn't understand what was going on, racked up vuln stacks at first and then slowly figured out the mechanics over time. This actually happened with the Normal Raids as well.

These are genuinely so trivial I don't understand why you really think it's noteworthy.

• Unique add areas and personal mechanics from Heavensward (such as Necron's)

Even EW had them like P7S.

• Smaller hitboxes (this was confirmed by them, but is rather obvious too)

This is completely cosmetic since the fight is designed to cater to that hitbox change anyways. Players don't actually know what the actual problem is so they complain that hitboxes are too big. It's merely a symptom that melee uptime is too free and tank positioning is irrelevant. Neither of which are fully resolved in DT.

• Willing to make it hard to have full uptime again (which they moved away from in Endwalker, this was confirmed by them)

Other than on Monk and, ironically, the tanks (except PLD) it's irrelevant. I just don't think "this boss is going to do something that forces you to disengage for one GCD" is interesting in any way, frankly. It is less worse than in EW, but that's a very low bar. In HW you'd disengage for multiple GCDs, and more importantly you'd need to adjust your rotation completely on the fly to deal with that disengagement. With, for instance, combos not breaking with ranged attacks and most melees (except MNK) having a convenient ranged attack they can store, disengagement hardly requires any thinking in DT.

• No longer making mechanics obvious; expectation is you wipe a few times first like ARR/HW. Occult Crescent is an example where most people couldn't understand what was going on, racked up vuln stacks at first and then slowly figured out the mechanics over time. This actually happened with the Normal Raids as well.

Even Coincounter doesn't have telegraphed mechanics (before they changed it).

As for stack/spread and "go to safe spot", those are some of the building blocks of fights. Like lego bricks. They aren't gonna get rid of the building blocks. I see fights for their creative whole, not for their constituent parts, so I'm able to enjoy them. But there do seem people that just reduce it to "lego bricks" and can't see a fight any other way, regardless of what they build with them.

You are truly audacious to use the phrase "creative whole" when even the structure of the fight has not meaningfully shfited in half a decade. There's a reason I invoked "Hello World", because the whole of the fight today now revolves around just a few dominant patterns, one of which is the debuff-soup-style combination. Most higher-end fights today revolve around just one single paradigm, which some call DDR-style raids, but it really is more accurately described as a positioning-first paradigm. And in particular, it's not just positioning-first, but individual-positioning-first (for example, we don't have things like Nisi/rots anymore).

Just another example of lack of innovation at a high level, not just the building blocks: we no longer have anything other than linear timelines now. You'd think O7S and O9S are first steps towards something much more interesting, but it seems that they have completely abandoned the desire to try anything other than linear timelines.

[Coolyy]

Let's take a look...

Normal Dungeons: No. 7.0 is the only exception and possibly had this improved encounter design for Dungeons even if the trash pulls were still garbage. The issue here is that patch dungeons have devolved so much to the point that every boss in The Clyteum does the same two mechanics on repeat the entire pull instead of having an actual timeline like bosses used to. Shadowbringers still has the best combination of both engaging bosses and trash pulls.

Normal Trials and Raids: Leaning no again. The 7.0 8-man Normal Content was great, though I don't think it's a noticeable improvement on 6.0. The trial design is still very inconsistent like Endwalker due to the MSQ Trial formula. Arkveld was a good extra trial. The Normal Raid design is probably on par with Pandaemonium, which is acceptable. Shadowbringers still has the best Trials and Raids and it's not particularly close.

Alliance Raids: Probably, though Vana'diel is really not that much better than MoTR. Vana'diel raids have improved with every iteration which is how it should be and the polar opposite of MoTR. The Ark Angels, Ultima and Omega, The Blonde Brothers, Promathia and the 60 seconds of Shinryu are creative fights that innovated. The difficulty being too easy is still an issue, individual mechanics should be harder. Both Vana'diel and MoTR were still worse than Mhach, Ivalice, Nier were on-content.

Variant and Criterion Dungeons: There's not enough here to form an actual opinion. I felt that the EW Variant Bosses had awesome design, that was never the issue with V&C. They definitely made the regular Variant mode easier in Merchant's Tale due to Variant (Advanced) which is bad. Variant (Advanced) is a great addition, but it's new content rather than an improvement to existing content. Criterion Dungeons removed trash packs which is bad. The Criterion Bosses were fun and challenging just like Endwalker. They removed Criterion (Savage) which is bad since it was optional content. We also only got one iteration of this content while we had three in Endwalker. I'm completely neutral on the actual content design since Variant (Advanced) success and the Criterion issues cancel each other out.

Deep Dungeon: Yes, this is an easy win for CBU3. Pilgrim's had an engaging design which is why it was popular on release. The Final Verse is literally the best normal difficulty encounter in the entire game, the hyper-casuals were crying over this fight on release which is an obvious sign it's great content. It also introduced new Deep Dungeon mechanics that were well received. The other Deep Dungeons are fine, but this is probably the best one yet to me.

Treasure Dungeons: Absolutely not. Trash, garbage and slop content!

Epic Fates: Yes, this is great content at this point. We still only get two each expansion which is the main issue here. Epic overworld bosses should be a major focus in Evercold, specifically those Giants we saw, we need at least one for each zone in Evercold.

Field Operations: Yes, because Endwalker literally had nothing. South Horn was a mess on release, but the actual encounter design here is great. CEs are engaging and the Phantom Jobs are interesting. North Horn can only improve on this which is good. I understand this content is extremely flawed, but the actual battle content is not the issue. I don't know if it's a direct improvement from Bozja yet, but it's pretty damn engaging so far.

Extreme: Absolutely yes, but this is really not saying much lol. DT Extremes are definitely an overall upgrade even if EW hit higher-highs with Barbariccia and Golbez. Extreme is still the least consistent High-End content in the game so that's really not saying much. Valigarmanda and Zoraal Ja were engaging and well received encounters. Queen Eternal and Zelenia were awesome and pretty well received despite having notable flaws like no Hole in the Wall and skipping or cheesing Bloom 6. Necron and Arkveld are pretty forgettable encounters that have joke DPS checks. Doomtrain and Enuo are creative and have cool add phases, but the DPS checks are joke and mechanics are too predetermined. Arcane Revelation, Naught Hunds and Gaze of The Void are great mechanics. Extreme mechanics need to be more random going forward. It shouldn't always be spread --> stack. Stack --> stack or spread --> spread is perfectly fine and would've made Doomtrain more of a memory game in a healthy way like Necron. The lows are still much higher than Endwalker since Zodiark, Endsinger, Rubicante and Zeromus are just awful! Shadowbringers is still the golden standard for Extreme if you can ignore Innocence being a Normal Trial.

Savage: This is the hardest one... Yes. They fixed the major issue with Pandaemonium where bosses had gigantic hitboxes which made every job a Physical Ranged. Arcadion bosses were more creative since each one had a distinct identity and gameplay loop which was a highlight. This resulted in Arcadion having the most consistent Savage encounters where none of the bosses are straight-up garbage, even M9S. The issue here with Arcadion was the difficulty. LHW tier could've been amazing if they were allowed to innovate more, but the decision to be overly lenient limited this. All the fights in CW tier were amazing, it's a contender for best raid tier of all time. HW tier didn't feel like the final tier and was a big downgrade from CW. It's a design issue when a Third Floor feels harder than the Fourth Floor. M9S is easily the worst fight in the Arcadion, though not awful. M12S should've been no-checkpoint, it's too easy. M10S is great but no DPS check for a dual boss encounter. Honestly the DPS checks were all under-tuned ranging from slightly to very besides M2S, M7S and M11S. The removal of Body Checks in most encounters made progging bosses very easy since they take far too long in-between mechanics. M11S was the solution but everyone cried about it since they got filtered week one, but they have promised to fix this problem in Evercold. Pandaemonium hit higher-highs and featured more complex mechanics. P3S, P4S, P5S, P8S, P9S, P10S, P12S are great fights that felt more rewarding to clear than most of the Arcadion fights. However, the lows are MUCH lower so Arcadion is still better than Pandaemonium due to its much greater consistency. Ultimately it is futile since Eden is the best raid series and Eden's Eternity is the best Savage tier of all time.

Chaotic and Quantum: These are the new additions the content cycle in XIV, so I guess it's not really improving on existing content. These encounters are amazing and the future of High-End raiding, I don't care what the casuals think. These are the best encounters in the entirety of Dawntrail. This content should return in Evercold if players actually want improved battle content.

Ultimate: Absolutely not. FRU is not a direct improvement on TEA, DSR or TOP design in any aspect, it's more of a downgrade when compared to those. Fatebreaker shouldn't have even been a phase, E12 P1 was more significant. DMU looks promising and brings change to the Ultimate formula. Even if DMU is amazing, DT is still 1/2 which is less inconsistent than ShB which went 1/1 and EW which went 2/2 in Ultimate Design. TOP is the greatest designed fight in the entire game, they will never surpass it even though Q40 is awesome.

There were a lot of minor improvements for Midcore and High-End content, but also an equal amount of substantial downgrades especially for Normal content which is the biggest issue here. There weren't any substantial improvements for any type of content so their claim was false and a lie even if that wasn't their original intention. Dawntrail's Normal Content has gotten progressively worse almost every patch. They clearly put a lot of effort into 7.0 content, and this should be commended, but the patch wasn't well received due to the MSQ. I'm assuming they saw the player count rapidly declining and thought it was because of the "difficulty" so they decided to make content even more simple. You can make arguments for High-End content being both better and worse, personally I would lean worse due to Ultimate which I value a lot. A huge reason this goal was never realized was probably that after the 7.0 reception they put much less effort into the Dawntrail patches and shifted a lot of resources to Evercold with the goal of making it the greatest expansion that actually has these substantial improvements to the entire game.

[Jeeqbit]

These are genuinely so trivial I don't understand why you really think it's noteworthy.

They aren't innovations or anything, but just them doing things they did before Endwalker again. I do note things even if they are not significant.

I just don't think "this boss is going to do something that forces you to disengage for one GCD" is interesting in any way, frankly. It is less worse than in EW, but that's a very low bar. In HW you'd disengage for multiple GCDs, and more importantly you'd need to adjust your rotation completely on the fly to deal with that disengagement. With, for instance, combos not breaking with ranged attacks and most melees (except MNK) having a convenient ranged attack they can store, disengagement hardly requires any thinking in DT.

All true. Just seen people complain about it in both directions.

You are truly audacious to use the phrase "creative whole" when even the structure of the fight has not meaningfully shfited in half a decade. There's a reason I invoked "Hello World", because the whole of the fight today now revolves around just a few dominant patterns, one of which is the debuff-soup-style combination. Most higher-end fights today revolve around just one single paradigm, which some call DDR-style raids, but it really is more accurately described as a positioning-first paradigm. And in particular, it's not just positioning-first, but individual-positioning-first (for example, we don't have things like Nisi/rots anymore).

Just another example of lack of innovation at a high level, not just the building blocks: we no longer have anything other than linear timelines now. You'd think O7S and O9S are first steps towards something much more interesting, but it seems that they have completely abandoned the desire to try anything other than linear timelines.

I'm not opposed to innovations, new mechanic styles or anything like that. It just doesn't particularly bother me the way they do it now, because I still come out of them having had fun and enjoyed the fights. If the differences are an illusion, then whatever they do seems to work on me and the people who've continued doing them who've not lapsed their subscriptions the last few expansions.

[Supersnow845]

But but but but content design is TOTALLY saved because M6 had one decent adds phase that basically just copied old coils adds phases

Checkmate libruls

[Coolyy]

But but but but content design is TOTALLY saved because M6 had one decent adds phase that basically just copied old coils adds phases

Checkmate libruls

People completely overrated Arcadion Savage, like it's absolutely not the best Savage raids of all time even if Cruiserweight is perhaps the greatest individual tier of all time.

It's really embarrassing how raiders took great thing, Cruiserweight Tier (primarily m6s adds), and judged the entire Arcadian Savage just on that; but it also shows how desperate people were to see them deviate and try to innovate more.

Light-Heavyweight was very fun but not special by any means. Heavyweight was okay but was absolutely a downgrade and much easier than Cruiserweight. They really need to start making the final tier of an expansion the definitive hardest like Alphascape. The final Savage of an expansion (12) should have similar difficulty to Ultimate honestly. M10S is awesome, though.