I was just chatting away to some friends in our FC about 1.x and what kind of things I miss about the open world battles. It was mostly the dynamic nature of it - not completely dynamic, of course, but you could pull that extra mob or a spriggan might run along into your battle, or something will go wrong like that. That moment where, having fought a certian number of mobs at once for a while, you get that one more mob so you can level faster... and it links with another mob or two or something, and you end up overrun and the entire party reacts. I love that!
Even when we died after being overrun, we all had a great laugh about it. When we won despite being overrun, it made it feel all the more an achievement and we bonded from it. Because the dungeons at the moment are the same every time, there is no time for a quick stop to chat, saying things like "Oh, wow, I did not expect that! Ha! That was pretty crazy - can't believe we got through it." Instead, every time it's the same, which means nobody ever feels like they did any more than "followed the instructions well".
The "Set List" mentality of the fights in major dungeons (particularly bosses) is what annoys me the most about this game these days. Not only does it make the fight a little boring, but people new to the fight are often lambasted ruthlessly by others for not doing things in precisely the correct way. I feel that either more open world content or perhaps a primal that has a bit of a random nature as to what it's going to do next would be really beneficial.
What do you guys think?
EDIT: Just for clarification, I don't mean for this to force impossible odds vs. repeated one hit kill moves such as those seen on Titan. I mean for this to be used when dealing with bosses, trash mobs and open world mobs alike as a means to offer an alternative source of difficulty. Instead of forcing people to learn split second reactions (or predictions, when dealing with latency), this would teach people to react to situations and alter their tactics. Lower the intensity of attacks, give them time to react, but allow for more creative fights with the reliance of adaptation rather than scripted moves. For example, there will be times when, having been suddenly overrun by mobs out of nowhere, the party would adapt by having a WAR suddenly start to tank instead of the PLD due to WAR's (hypothetical situation, hypothetical stats, bare with me) better AOE-ennity moves. The PLD starts backup healing alongside the two healers to make up for the increased amount of damage being dealt to the WAR, while the DD start chipping away at the mobs to get things to a more manageable state. More thinking on your feet!![]()