Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Bizniztyme]

Most people react far better than they memorize and enjoy reactive dynamics moreso, hence the extreme popularity of shooters in general and online shooters specifically. And more options allow people to customize their playstyle to something that suits them. Those more adept players in the group can cover the mistakes of others, even if it may drag out the fight. Too many mistakes should always mean certain failure of course but variance would be nice and more thinking on your feet, as opposed to simply executing the same strategy each time, is something i think a lot of people would welcome.

And you could do that in all these encounters, who says they have to memorize they can just react but as you can see, they can't even do that. lol And almost all fights you can recover if you are skilled enough and geared enough. Even if people get knocked out of the fight. Why do you think people can sell clears? Because they are skilled and geared.

[Scaevolicious]

Also, as somebody who raided in Vanilla WoW's first two tiers and thus actually has experience with a raid environment without very many one-shot avoidable mechanics, softish DPS requirements, generally healable raid damage provided people aren't TOO terrible all at once, etc., I would like to point out that that sort of design has to put HUGE pressure on tanks to gear up if it is to provide any sense of progression whatsoever.

[Yumi_umi]

Imo the 1 shot mechanics should only be in phase transitions.
Like it's just too cheap and lazy to make a fight only have 1 supposedly route to follow.
There's barely any variety in endgame strats. Cuz every other strat always funnel into the same drain because of the " in your face jump rope" 1 shot wipe raid mechanics. Oh well !

[Velhart]

While I don't really think the FFXI style set up would work well, I do 100% agree on your stance against how end game battles work. I hope the developers see this, it was a very well written post and thank you for translating it for us.

[Clavaat]

This one is tough for me. I certainly agree with some aspects, but not with others. Firstly, some comparisons to FFXI are unwarranted, I believe. You see, in FFXI there were barely any mechanics to bosses. They were incredibly easy to learn, and required even less skill to accomplish. The challenge mostly came from the time dedication you had to make as far as waiting.

With FFXIV, is it a bit too mechanics-oriented? Yes, I can agree with that. However, I like feeling more like I'm playing a game and being able to move and dodge as opposed to standing still. It is tough, on the other hand, because it does mean I often have to rely on others to be able to do that as well, which the OP touched upon. So, I feel right in the middle about that point, tough to say what I think here.

Also, as far as the "random" factor is concerned, there is some of that, currently in fights, such as conflags in T5 (as far as who they target), landslide/plumes in Titan EX, and the tank swapping in Ifrit EX. I'm sure this can and will be expanded upon with future encounters, but just pointing out that we do have some of that already.

More openness with party structure, yes I would definitely agree with. I think (and hope) that this is in the works already, considering the expansions to CT and possibility of Support roles being an option. We do have some, such as queuing as a solo tank or 2 tank or 3 healer or whatever. I know it's not exactly what was meant by OP, and still not exactly what I want to see, but it is there.

I'm not a fan of his/her view on lockouts, unfortunately. That is a system I'm currently comfortable with and would not like to see changed to trigger items or some such thing. I don't mind trigger items being an option for new content or something, horizontally-speaking, but not for BC or anything.

So all in all, I agree with some but not all of the points. Still an interesting post.

EDIT: I'd like to add that, not to piss on anyone's parade or anything, but it is probably much harder to all of a sudden change some of these things at once. They have a development schedule, which they stick fairly close to. Overhauling a battle system is not likely. It's not exactly a "You know what? You're right! *flips switch*" kind of situation. What is likely, or possible, however, would be to do this in increments. Tweaks here and there. Which is already kind of happening, if you look for it.

[Roris]

Pretty much nailed it, especially the Second Coil feels like it tries to throw in a lot of mechanics just for the sake of overconvolution and some of them just happen because they do and sure they make sense and might be cake once you figure them out, but before that especially going in blind for the first time you just kind of have to guess why and when it happens by trail and error and doesn't really feel like it flows as naturally as other fights for lack of a better word to express it, you are indeed dancing way more around the mechanics than you're actually fighting the boss. There's a thin balance between what a boss does and what happens around it and I agree the dungeons and the first Coil get that balance right, while T5 onwards lean towards the weighted mechanics side, it's fine because they're all beatable and really not that hard when you know the dance, it just doesn't feel as fun as other fights in the game but hey some people like everything in the game regardless so props to them. He also nailed the part about statics and lockouts, shame it's another meanie mean post not praising the game, time to ignore it into the trash it goes, right.

[Clavaat]

He also nailed the part about statics and lockouts, shame it's another meanie mean post not praising the game, time to ignore it into the trash it goes, right.

The OP made a lot of points, about several different things. I think it's only fair to look at parts of it, and not as a whole. Like I said in my post, I agree with some things, but not others. Not to mention the fact that you can't exactly just change these sorts of things at once, as it would require a lot of reprogramming.

The attitude isn't helping.

[BoltNixter]

Again! Agree 100% with OP post!

[Yurihyuga]

well actually I just came up for an idea on the whole throw more people at it to make it easier. People want to know the story right with the whole coil and the allagans and its sure to lead to something eventually. Why don't we cater to all parties.

What do people think of this idea.

8 man coil - keep it simple have some mechanics but this is more catered to the casual crowd but does reward gear towards progressing to 16 man
16 man coil - gets heated up and will become a wall for a lot of people but does reward gear progressing to 24 man coil
24 man coil - more aimed at the hardcore and maybe some mainstream if they make it.

16/24 man coil would be completely optional and really just there to challenge people who are looking for the challenge and this would stop the wall as everyone progresses to 3rd coil for there tier.

To be honest they wouldn't need to do much to add to 16/24 coil. More boss HP, More damage and more rotations maybe add another couple mechanics for 16 man and then a couple more for 24 man.

This might be seen as a horrible idea but meh just thought of it on the spot sort of thing.

[Foo01]

It seem that after all the long winded discussion and all the debate, the bottom line is people don't like to have everything riding on instant kill gimmicks.

Well consider titan. How about we throw on RNG into that instant kill move, maybe 30% of the time, in exchange for a player being knocked off, the player is feared/stunned/hysteria/whatever and titan gains back 1/8 of its health for every player hit. And if the health goes back over the 50% you go back to pre-heart phase.

Would a simple change like that be acceptable?

If so then you can extrapolate this into many of the other 1-hit kill mechanics in any other dungeons.