Too much dancing

[Sibyll]

Regarding old FF games... uhhh recently played ffII (america) there were a lot of interesting mechanics... Cecil becoming a paladin had to STOP attacking the mirror image of himself... the three sisters required a kill order and reflect was super helpful... the dungeon where you couldn't use anything metal... idk... they kept it interesting, without dancing at their disposal!

While there are a lot of interesting mechanics you can throw, the issue with the type of design you are describing is there is little replay value. Once people know that you have to kill the adds in a specific order or that using fire spells heals the boss, then the encounter becomes trivialized even though it might be very rewarding to figure it out on your own for the first time.

The issue with gear check mechanics is that the Tome gear makes it incredibly easy to meet these requirements. Turn 2 enrage method is an example of mechanics getting thrown out the window and the encounter becoming a tank and spank gear check.

Garuda Extreme has some mechanics that don't involve DDR. If you use the NA method it becomes a tank gear check.

Nearly every primal fight has a DPS check component. The encounter designs stress mastery of class and game mechanics more so than meeting arbitrary gear milestones, and I don't believe this is a bad thing. I regularly see very well geared DPS that can't make simple DPS checks because they understand class mechanics, tanks that melt because they don't know how to use cooldowns and players with relics and full myth tome gear that can't avoid AoEs on Titan HM.

SE has managed to gate content almost entirely on "do not stand in fire" mechanics which is rather sad when you think about it. Perhaps it's so they can confidently throw more complex mechanics at the players knowing that the player base has mastered the art of positioning.

[Simaril]

SE has managed to gate content almost entirely on "do not stand in fire" mechanics which is rather sad when you think about it. Perhaps it's so they can confidently throw more complex mechanics at the players knowing that the player base has mastered the art of positioning.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I find it sad for a couple of reasons.

-"do not stand in the fire" mechanics amke the game very one dimensional
-I am not great at positioning, and I would rather see a game that does NOT require mastering that art... When should dancing be an important component of RPGs??? I'd be happy to see some enounters where you don't have to move at all.
-I was hoping Final Fantasy would come up with something new, interesting, fun, and BETTER.

While there are a lot of interesting mechanics you can throw, the issue with the type of design you are describing is there is little replay value. Once people know that you have to kill the adds in a specific order or that using fire spells heals the boss, then the encounter becomes trivialized even though it might be very rewarding to figure it out on your own for the first time.

Replay value is a challange, but not impossible to overcome. Could gearcheck bosses hp/defense/dmg reflect raid members ilvl? Could encounters include more randomness... like sometimes having a caster add you have to burn, but other times having a tank add you're better off ignoring or CCing?

Nearly every primal fight has a DPS check component. The encounter designs stress mastery of class and game mechanics more so than meeting arbitrary gear milestones, and I don't believe this is a bad thing. I regularly see very well geared DPS that can't make simple DPS checks because they understand class mechanics, tanks that melt because they don't know how to use cooldowns and players with relics and full myth tome gear that can't avoid AoEs on Titan HM.

While there are gearchecks, there are few barriers preventing you from getting way better gear than you need (crafted and tomes allow you to bypass gear checks). You might need ilv 70 for titan HM, but you can get ilv 70 crafted gear before you even hit 50, so it's easy to significantly out gear everything through Titan HM - IMO each tier of gear should be gated by gear checks. This probably wasn't true for players who got to endgame quickly, but it is for the more casual players who would actually benefit from some gating and the feeling of tiers.


I had a full set of ilv70 crafted gear before I went to a lv 50 instance... so I trivialized any gearcheck in:

Castrum Meridanum
Praetorium
Ifrit HM
Wanderer's Palace
Amdapor Keep
Garuda HM
Copperbell HM
Haukke HM
Pharos Sirius
King Mog was quite easy in ilv 70
Titan... ok now you need 3,200 hps - so ilv 70 + a few materia
Ultima
Crystal Tower

Maybe part of my issue isn't the instances, but rather the availabilty of gear? Honestly, I think the "dance check" is too harsh, while there are essentially no other "checks."

[CompSci88]

I'd be happy to see some enounters where you don't have to move at all.

Yeah, because tank and spank for 10+min is really fun.

[Simaril]

Gear checks aren't playing chess, they're the sign in front of a ferris wheel that says "You must be this tall to ride".

I had a full set of ilv70 crafted gear before I went to a lv 50 instance... so I trivialized any gearcheck in:

Castrum Meridanum
Praetorium
Ifrit HM
Wanderer's Palace
Amdapor Keep
Garuda HM
Copperbell HM
Haukke HM
Pharos Sirius

None of those offer anything above ilv70, so there's no need to do them for progression.

These offer some gear upgrades, but again barely offer a gearcheck at all:
King Mog was quite easy in ilv 70
Titan... ok now you need 3,200 hps - so ilv 70 + a few materia
Ultima
Crystal Tower


So "progression" is not based on gear to that point, instead it's how good you are at dancing. Is that really what you expect from an MMO?

[Trashy]

I had a full set of ilv70 crafted gear before I went to a lv 50 instance

So you had gear well beyond what most level 50s have and then complain you're too geared for the intro level 50 content.

[Sibyll]

I had a full set of ilv70 crafted gear before I went to a lv 50 instance... so I trivialized any gearcheck...

At gear levels appropriate to the instance (with the exception of Castrum and Praetorium) each of those instances is challenging in it's own way due to DPS checks (Ifrit HM, Garuda HM, Haukke Manor, and AK) or simple mechanics. Are you really surprised that you found these instances to be devoid of challenge when you walked into them in gear 20 levels above the requirement for them?

Thornmarch is a DPS check. Titan is a DPS Race and healer check. Ultima is a DPS Race and tank swap. Crystal Tower is a zerg/trollfest.

Also what are the challenges and obstacles being overcome by waiting for spawn timers? Patience and boredom?