Semi-random boss rotation idea

[Sylkis]

So this was asked as a question in one of the live letters (?) and the response was that it is possible to have good and bad luck with fights, and so players would keep resetting until it wasn't hard.

So my idea is, preserve some order and only randomise a few parts of the boss rotation.

Using Titan EX as an example, this is his final phase rotation:
http://i.imgur.com/9kBP1Re.png

Now I will categorise all the attacks in the final phase into lists:
Redirect DPS = {POTATOES, JAIL, SUPER BOMBS/JUMP}
Tank Attack = {TABLE FLIP, TABLE FLIP, TABLE FLIP, TABLE FLIP}
Unavoidable AoE = {STOMP, STOMP}
Common = {X BOMBS, LANDSLIDE, WEIGHTS, LANDSLIDE, DOUBLE WEIGHTS, ROW BOMBS, LANDSLIDE, WEIGHTS, LANDSLIDE}
(I chose these lists so there will be no double table flips or stomps etc)

Each time an attack is used, it is removed from the list above in {}. Once all lists are empty, they reset.

His attacks can then be done like this:
[redirect dps, tank attack, unavoidable, common] + common
where each category is replaced by a random skill from the corresponding {} list, removed without replacement. The order of the categories in [] are also random. Common is added to the end to avoid having double tank attacks etc.

Since Titan has about 19 attacks before returning to the top of his rotation, this can be repeated until all his attacks are used up (so roughly 4 times repeats of the above), each time randomising the part inside the square brackets []

This should make each fight unique yet fair.
To compensate for randomness, the attacks can be made more lenient.


Thoughts so far?

[kyuven]

This is pretty much how a few of the FCOB battles are handled, except in smaller amounts.
In addition, Shiva has a level of randomization as well, though in her case it's a coin flip between sword and staff forms at certain points.
They compensate for adding a random element by cutting down the number of actual mechanics and having the random element be a sequence or target (example: most of t9 has a lot of random elements to it, especially during the, well, elements phase), which makes this less stressful for both the players and the testers. After all, remember that if there are 8 different attacks that can be in any order, that's 64 different permutations you have to test for, whereas if there are only 2-3 different variations based on order and such, you do far less testing and players get far less stressed at having to learn ALL of the mechanics in ANY order. Being on your toes is one thing, but very few players can keep up that level of stress for long periods of time.
Putting the RNG into mechanics layouts as more than a coin flip or 1-in-3 chance also makes certain victories feel less legitimate and losses feel more infuriating. Super high end world first groups would raise unholy hell if they lose a fight and thus the distinction of being "world first" due to RNG mechanics.

[Sylkis]

This is pretty much how a few of the FCOB battles are handled, except in smaller amounts.
In addition, Shiva has a level of randomization as well, though in her case it's a coin flip between sword and staff forms at certain points.

Shiva didn't feel random for me at all, part of it was "Look at me I will show you what my next 8 attacks are" and there seems to be only 1 coin flip on sword/staff, then the other one, then it goes bow (I think).

Coil is the same - a coin flip.

The main difference is that you are given time react to see which one it is then know what ALL their next attacks are, so what ends up happening is that you memorise all the possibilities, which isn't much better. You can get lucky, and only have 1 of them happen all the time (E.g. charge only on T10, tank tether only on T11)

With what I put there, you still have to deal with everything, just in a different order.

[Garlyle]

In addition, Shiva has a level of randomization as well, though in her case it's a coin flip between sword and staff forms at certain points.

Sort of. There's also randomness in whether or not she does certain minor attacks (When - or even if - she does Heavenly Strike during Sword Phase, for instance).

The major concern they had with randomness in boss rotations in super high level content is the concern about "okay, so there's this really hard combination that can occur and so this group just retried until they got a run without it and won". Consider for a moment if, during Titan EX, you could get back-to-back plumes at any time - including while you're busy dodging a set of bombs (oh god that sounds horrifying). If that sounds like a nightmare... don't worry, eventually you'll just get a run where you don't have it happen!

And there is some aversion to randomness among the player base - see the reactions to Thornmarch EX. About the only rules to what can happen in that fight are that there's x attacks during the first phase and an additional y that can happen in the second, and that they won't repeat. For a long time I heard a lot of people saying they'd never touch it again after getting their clear.

[Sylkis]

The major concern they had with randomness in boss rotations in super high level content is the concern about "okay, so there's this really hard combination that can occur and so this group just retried until they got a run without it and won". Consider for a moment if, during Titan EX, you could get back-to-back plumes at any time - including while you're busy dodging a set of bombs (oh god that sounds horrifying). If that sounds like a nightmare... don't worry, eventually you'll just get a run where you don't have it happen!

That's why its semi random

[Gardes]

Wouldn't this actually require the players to memorize the ENTIRE move set even more because the system is basically a deck and the players are required to count cards to generally know when it's time to start feeling safe from certain moves PLUS when the deck has been reshuffled?

Personal rambling anecdote here? I'm playing from Asia in the Montreal data center. My connection is bad and I need a vpn. Back when ARR started I didn't have one and starting as a paladin going up against my first end game content Ifrit was very daunting, especially since it was 50/50 that my role was to stun down eruptions. With my skippy latency it was completely impossible to stun eruption with reaction alone. My solution then was to memorize the entirity of Ifrit's move set. After I mastered it, it was obvious that I needed only to memorize the preceding attack pattern before eruption to get to it but back then Ifrit was a big deal for my i50+ self that needed his sword bad. I memorized his move set like it was an exam for me.

Now, ever since getting a vpn that works for me, I've been able to fight bosses while generally knowing the important points of a fight for a specific role and just react to that. For example, I only know how to fight nael as a tank and all I need to remember is 1st stardust, meteor stream, 3 gcds after 2nd meteor stream, etc for raven's beaks. Ask me anything else about nael's phase 1 full move set order and I wouldn't remember and weirdly enough, due to the way the battle system to server interaction works, I think it's a good thing to a degree. It's lenient enough in a way that low latency players can just ignore the whole rotation system and react to moves as they come or play by feel and high latency players do not need as much reaction because they only need to memorize bits of the rotation.

I do realize that technically this game is not marketed/intended towards me and some people will feel that the game shouldn't be held back to cater to my own real world shortcomings so to speak but I've seen people playing from America or somewhere closer than mine and has it worse than I do. Going back to my first paragraph, with your proposed system, the need for twitch reaction will be heightened and they will need to 'count cards' for the whole thing to help them get past hurdles instead of memorizing bullet points. Don't you think that maybe most of them would find that just as unfun as memorizing the static rotations?

Make no mistake though, I realize that most of these request for randomness in boss fights stems from that fun you get from boss fights in single player action games and I enjoy them too. The game has a fight similar to what you (the op) and others want, I think? Stone vigil hard. It's an enjoyable fight that has players approach a fight differently compared to the other boss fights in the game: actively looking at the bosses and reacting to their animations and attack paths. It's like fighting a double rajang or double tigrex except...it's super easy. Their tells are super long and their damage is puny. They're 4 man dungeon boss fight though, so that's acceptable. But what if they're scaled to 8 man trial/coil in terms of damage and reaction time required? Where exactly would the balance needed to be? I've seen this dungeon enough times to realize that the majority of the player base would have trouble if they're only given time to react to these bosses' random moves about as long as they have to react to t1 and t2 high voltage or a chimera dragon/ram. If the damage is lowered to not be as punishing, then it boils down to having the healers play a harder whack-a-mole because people just keep getting swiped left and right for non lethal damage and it's the healer's job to not have them die.

Man this sure is tl;dr...hope someone actually reads it LOL

[Sylkis]

Wouldn't this actually require the players to memorize the ENTIRE move set even more

No, you can't really count them because you can't visibly see when the deck has been reshuffled, and there is a few hundred/thousand permutations. It is possible to throw some "Common" cards in there at random times without affecting the fight balance too much, making it impossible to predict exactly what will come next.
What could happen is that you know a move of X category is coming with 25% - 50% chance at most...but I don't think that's practical during the heat of battle.

I said at the end, the moves can be made more lenient because now you will be reacting in real time.
(I play from New Zealand connecting to JP server, roughly 300 ping and worse to Montreal)

Sorry, didn't read the whole thing but I assume it was based off the assumption in the first paragraph