Skill based fights..

[Richiealvian]

So apparently people wanted skill based fights. What qualifies as skill based if not:

Using cooldown on time (applies for both defensive and offensive)
Dodging aoe
Interruption on time
Managing threat list (applies for tank swaps as well)
Situational awareness (clicking on objects.. interacting with stuff.. not doze off..split damage.. stack together/away, stand somewhere)
???

Just wondering, cause people said it's boring and it's that all over again, but they've kinda used all the mechanics..? What is your so amazing idea that means something revolutionary, new, and fresh?

[Lakshmana]

Skills in deep MMORPG games which are missing here, unfortunately:
- adapting the strategy used to the jobs you have in your party composition - NOT NEEDED IN ARR besides ranged vs melee
- choosing cross class abilities of the party jobs depending on the battle you're facing - NOT NEEDED IN ARR (way too few useful cross class abilities so you just take all)
- choosing the equipment you use depending on the battle you're facing - NOT NEEDED IN ARR, as generally higher iLvl means better, no matter the fight
- adapting the battle tactics to actions of the boss - NOT NEEDED IN ARR (scripted encounters)
- cooperating with others in the sense that actions of Player 1 are influencing the potency of the actions of Player 2 - VERY FEW CASES IN ARR

It's not only Pinball that requires skill. Chess requires quite a high amount of it, just of a different kind. Hopefully ARR will become less Invaders and more Baldur's Gate, so to say ^^

Please note that I'm not saying what you list above is bad. It's cool, itt's good. But it's simply not enough. A MMORPG game can't be based so much on dodging red areas on the screen. It should be mainly a rock - paper - scissor - shotgun game, with great depth. I love SE, I want this company to succeed. And if ARR will succeed in the casual area, so be it, I'll still be happy for them, even if I won't play the game. I'm just afraid they're in for a quick buck and in the long run this will not work. Maybe I'm simply wrong. I won't be upset if I am

-Lak

[Axidrain]

Skills ...
- cooperating with others in the sense that actions of Player 1 are influencing the potency of the actions of Player 2 - VERY FEW CASES IN ARR

It's not only Pinball that requires skill. Chess requires quite a high amount of it, just of a different kind. Hopefully ARR will become less Invaders and more Baldur's Gate, so to say ^^
....
-Lak

What he said. This is why the end game fights are limited to just reaction mechanics. It's because the game does not have any other option to make encounters more "difficult" or complex.

[SarcasmMisser]

"Boring" tends to be a dogwhistle for it's too hard for me, illegitimate difficulty is difficulty that personally frustrates the player and can't accept challenges as is; you should take complaints of the game's difficulty with a critical mind.

For example the first reply of your thread raised some interesting points, but most of them he is wrong on and they're present in fights he actually hasn't done.

You gotta look beneath the surface

[Lakshmana]

I didn't do all the fights in the game, but I believe that if till my relic I didn't encounter the stuff I'm saying it's missing, I won't suddenly see a complete change of the game.

I was saying:

- adapting the strategy used to the jobs you have in your party composition - NOT NEEDED IN ARR besides ranged vs melee
In 99.99% of the case the party has the same balanced composition dictacted by DF. And the main difference between melee is ranged vs dps.
The fact that in many fights I simply don't need to be aware of the party composition (I play tank) speaks a lot. I know there's a healer there and some guys that deal damage. I don't cooperate with them besides keeping the mob still so they can hit from behind of flanks and the very occasional "Cover, get close to me!" macro (used maybe 2 times in 1 month). My abilities do not concern them. Their abilities do not concern me.

I did Titan HM and I honestly don't know what jobs where in the party. I tanked 90% standing still, 10% avoiding some bombs, battle finished, ktxbai! I just know we had 2 healeares, 1 tank (me) and 5 dd. What actual jobs they were didn't matter for my play AT ALL in that fight at least. And not for theirs, I'm afraid. The main skill is remembering the pattern or - in case of FC battle - listening to the guy that says "now it's landslide... now it's bombs... now it's stomp" ^^

If this DOES change at higher level fights, then I'm glad. Hopefully it will change even more in the future.

- choosing cross class abilities of the party jobs depending on the battle you're facing - NOT NEEDED IN ARR (way too few useful cross class abilities so you just take all)
I've NEVER saw a discussion or a request about something like "Hey, tank, please make sure you're bringing [cross class ability name] to this fight, as it really helps]. This speaks a lot, IMHO.

- choosing the equipment you use depending on the battle you're facing - NOT NEEDED IN ARR, as generally higher iLvl means better, no matter the fight
I do believe I'm totally right here. As long as there's the term of BIS going around it means it's best for all fights. In other words, higher = better, no matter what. There's some talk about elemental resistances, but it seems nobody cares about them.

- adapting the battle tactics to actions of the boss - NOT NEEDED IN ARR (scripted encounters)
I guess you could say that stuff like:
Blue eyes = go away
Violet eyes = stack on the boss

count as adaptation to boss actions. But they're very basic. And for primal battles, it's about respecting a script, not adapting to random boss actions.

- cooperating with others in the sense that actions of Player 1 are influencing the potency of the actions of Player 2 - VERY FEW CASES IN ARR
Extremely few cases (Convalescence, Mantra etc.). Nothing resembling a real, powerful interaction between two player abilities.

If I'm wrong, np ^^

-Lak

[Axidrain]

"Boring" tends to be a dogwhistle for it's too hard for me, illegitimate difficulty is difficulty that personally frustrates the player and can't accept challenges as is; you should take complaints of the game's difficulty with a critical mind.

For example the first reply of your thread raised some interesting points, but most of them he is wrong on and they're present in fights he actually hasn't done.

You gotta look beneath the surface

Accuracy? Seriously. That's pretty much the only thing that you have to look out for and it's only applicable in coils. Lol

[SarcasmMisser]

Accuracy? Seriously. That's pretty much the only thing that you have to look out for and it's only applicable in coils. Lol

Congrats on finding one of the 2 points I agree with.

Like it's a pointless thing to say "most fights don't require this sort of skill" when by design the developers made a tiny minority of the content "challenging content". If you're not talking about primals or coil then what are you talking about?

I agree that itemization in this game is garbage and cross-class skills are restrictive, neither has much relevance to encounter difficulty though.

[NefGP]

Well, let's compare it directly to XI since that was their previous, highly successful MMO.

In XI skill meant:

- Knowing what special attacks the enemy can use and being able to react accordingly, as they were generally done at random instead of a fixed rotation like in ARR
- Memorizing skillchains, magic bursts, and weaknesses/resistances to not just the 8 elements but enfeebling effects as well
- Having situational gear to maximize performance or adapt to a crisis situation, such as swapping out for an evasion set or -% damage taken gear.
- Having all applicable sub jobs at your disposal, for example Dark Knight for access to Stun on a Red Mage or Ninja for shadows.
- Some fights (mostly the CoP story fights) required advanced preparation generally involving farming special items to make the fight easier, like CCB Polymers for Omega Weapon.

More than anything though it came down simply knowing your role and being able to adapt to whatever gets thrown at you. There's really not a whole of that in ARR, it's largely just each player doing their own thing and only really paying attention to their rotations and AoE. A few fights now involve Tanks swapping hate vs certain mobs (Ultima HM, Garuda EX etc.) but otherwise the rule of thumb still applies. Limit Breaks honestly don't count either, and would be far more interesting if the LB effect actually changed with each individual job, for example DRG could have increased WS damage or TP regen for the party while MNK grants a large skill speed bonus, and BRD gives critical hit rate up instead of the stupid shared healing LB.


I honestly don't like that every fight is 100% scripted as it makes it dull and uninteresting over the long run. What if Titan were to skip doing a landslide or Tumult and fire off a second Mountain Buster after the 1st one? How many tanks do you know would be able to handle that? The RNG isn't always (though in most cases it is) a bad thing. A little randomness in the content, done right, keeps things interesting and helps weed out the truly good players from the bad.

Whereas Vana'diel felt like a world full of danger and wonder, Hydaelyn feels like a world on rails...

[Dyvid]

Honest question and hope to get an honest answer. Why are you playing FFXIV (new school mechanics) instead of FFXI (old school tactics).

[Axidrain]

Honest question and hope to get an honest answer. Why are you playing FFXIV (new school mechanics) instead of FFXI (old school tactics).

Lol this is not new school buddy. This is dumbed down