AOE Rings

[Airget]

Nonsense.

Learning enemies by "reading" their animations and learning their "tells" is a very long-standing means of learning and defeating enemies in games - MMOs and otherwise. You only have to read the chat log, or look for circles on the ground, if you never bothered to learn the encounters.

I've been playing TERA for the past month or so. In TERA, you have mobs known as "BAMs", they're basically miniature raid bosses which can take several minutes to kill (up to 10 if you're soloing them).

They each have some seriously powerful moves that can mess you up in a number of ways (slow, DoT, massive spike-damage, knock-down, etc) and make a good fight go bad very quickly. There are no rings, cones, lines, or anything indicating what its move is going to be. The only warning it gives is that, for certain attacks, its eyes will flash red before attacking.

At that point, you have to pay attention to its animation/behavior to determine what its attack is going to be, and then react appropriately to avoid or prepare for the attack.

However the red flash doesn't happen before all moves. Some are telegraphed only by an animation it does prior to doing the attack.

There's nothing else. No other indications of what its damage radius is or of how far away you have to get. Yet, people learn the individual BAMs, learn their behaviors, their attacks, their attack ranges, and their "tells", and become capable of taking them down - even solo.

Check out this video. This person is soloing a world boss, likely intended for 5 people. You can see how they react based on the enemy's animations, and know to get out of the way, and how far. They know how to tell when it's setting up for its AOE electric field. They know how to tell when it's going to leap. They know how to tell when it's going to slam its tail down, etc. One bad mistake, and that fight could have gone down the tubes for them.

While I'm not nearly on level of this player, I've managed to take down a number of BAMs solo myself. It can be extremely difficult when you're not as familiar with them. But it's also actually a hell of a lot of fun and very rewarding. Especially when you get to the point of knowing how to read a BAM - which used to smack you around like a rag doll - well enough to get through an entire fight almost unscathed.

And please, nobody say "well, TERA's an action game, FFXIV Isn't... so it's not the same" because that makes absolutely no difference here. Whether the combat is point and click, Tab Targeting or Action-Based, it would apply exactly the same way. Also nobody say, "well stop trying to turn this game into TERA", because that's not what I'm saying either. The concept of depending on 'tells' and animations to know what an enemy is going to do and follow appropriately is not limited to TERA. It applies to all styles of combat. In fact, it's been in previous FF games as well.

The problem is these days - the impatient, "gimme now" generation we're in - people have become spoiled by and dependent on Wiki Guides and Helper Add-ons to complete anything. The Helper Addons in particular have become an absolute crutch. It's most apparent when you see people (as several have in this thread, and on other forums) arguing that it would somehow be not possible, or overly difficult, to defeat enemies by learning their patterns and figuring out how to fight them effectively. It seems, in some cases, like these people don't realize people have done just that for years now, and continue to in some games to this day (see my TERA example above).

It's not some crazy, untenable concept. It's a tried-and-true, road tested and proven mechanic in games, particularly against boss type creatures.

So, it's clearly not an issue of "it can't be done". It's an issue of "they don't want to do it". Two very, very different things.

It is what it is. Yohi-P has been clear in his intentions to make this game extremely casual friendly, with "strong guidance" (his words) in the gameplay and such. So, hey, for the people who "need" (read: want) things spelled out for them... rejoice. You're getting your way. Those who prefer to be a bit more involved in the equation and figure things out for themselves will learn to deal with it, or move on I suppose.

Just another example of how players are pushing to have their games more and more simplified, and more and more dumbed down. All the while, complaints of "why are games getting so boring?" are increasing. Coincidence? I don't think so. I'd say it's Cause and Effect in action.

Every system has it's flaws and advantages, using Tera again as an example, sure it's action based and some BAMs can be soloed, but in the end every BAM works within the same general mechanics and then 1-3 of their own unique traits.

The example you showed, the most obvious similarity between other BAMS that are 4-legged, they use that same exact charge move that goes into one direction.

Things to an extent are telegraphed, made ina way where it isn't to hard to dodge and to an extent repetitive. I never really saw myself using different strategies when fighting BAMs unless I managed to find a better ability to replace an old one but for the most part, every BAM is pretty much, save the dodge move for when they charge after you and attack accordingly lol.

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Now as far as XIV goes and the AOE rings, XI had it to, in essence. Some people did use plugins to help them tell how far a mob was from them in order to dodge weaponskills and the likes, so honestly this ring thing is nothing more than an official/legit version being put into XIV.

[Okipuit]

To give you a bit of insight on the AoE ring in the screenshot; the red ring surrounding the peiste indicates that the monster's AoE attack is coming and where it will hit. (So you better move!)

All players will be able to see these AoE rings, but please note that these rings aren't displayed for every single AoE attack, only for special actions. Lastly, these rings will not be displayed for player enhancements such as protect and there are currently no plans to be able to toggle these on/off.

[HiirNoivl]

Okie dokie! Oki puit-y!

[Kallera]

Every system has it's flaws and advantages, using Tera again as an example, sure it's action based and some BAMs can be soloed, but in the end every BAM works within the same general mechanics and then 1-3 of their own unique traits.

The example you showed, the most obvious similarity between other BAMS that are 4-legged, they use that same exact charge move that goes into one direction.

Things to an extent are telegraphed, made ina way where it isn't to hard to dodge and to an extent repetitive. I never really saw myself using different strategies when fighting BAMs unless I managed to find a better ability to replace an old one but for the most part, every BAM is pretty much, save the dodge move for when they charge after you and attack accordingly lol.

------------

Now as far as XIV goes and the AOE rings, XI had it to, in essence. Some people did use plugins to help them tell how far a mob was from them in order to dodge weaponskills and the likes, so honestly this ring thing is nothing more than an official/legit version being put into XIV.

Whoop de doo, now how does one make it challenging in the face of glowing UI floors?

[Duuude007]

Whoop de doo, now how does one make it challenging in the face of glowing UI floors?

The same way you would in the face of said abilities being listed in your chat log.

At least with this option, you can analyze the monster (i.e. actually play the game), rather than scan a box full of letters.

[Kallera]

The same way you would in the face of said abilities being listed in your chat log.

At least with this option, you can analyze the monster (i.e. actually play the game), rather than scan a box full of letters.

I'd rather analyze the monster(i.e. actually play the game), without having the UI light up like a christmas tree. If this was a fighting game there'd be the "WARNING" icons from GGX2 when the player or cpu uses its new attacks.

To those that haven't played, I mean these, from the boss I-No fight:

My point is that it looks ridiculous when dumbed down to this level.

[HiirNoivl]

I'd rather analyze the monster(i.e. actually play the game), without having the UI light up like a christmas tree. If this was a fighting game there'd be the "WARNING" icons from GGX2 when the player or cpu uses its new attacks.

To those that haven't played, I mean these, from the boss I-No fight:

My point is that it looks ridiculous when dumbed down to this level.

You're hyping. No way it's that bad.

[Anonymoose]

As someone who'd scan the chat-log and then watch animations for how they sync up and what to do in response, this will pretty much be the same thing with a little less eye darting. I welcome it, but making these things toggle-able in future patches would be nice. Once you've learned to bowl, you can lower the bumpers.

[Kallera]

You're hyping. No way it's that bad.

Throw in multiple mob attack patterns and it can get pretty bad.

[Jig]

Phew, thank goodness for mindless aoe rings. For a while I thought I was actually going to have to put thought into the game and learn the battles I wanted to win. I guess I'd be ok with another layer of dumbing it down if this were the first game I ever played or I wore a padded helmet....... but I don't so I'm not too happy about it personally.