Why encounters with a difficulty slope are bad

[Warlyx]

my main issues is repeating the first phases again and again and again and again until u learn the last 1 enough to win...by the time u learned last 1 , the first phases are done blindfolded....

[Talia_Hailwind]

Shiva EX is the perfect fight in my opinion,

Always something different happening,
Moves that keep the tank awake,
The right amount of movement,
No cheap instant death mechanics, (mechanics where if you mess up you only take at most one guy with you, AND NOT THE WHOLE TEAM unlike coil. ),
Pre fight tactics (two people in the same safe spots),
Laughing at newbies sliding on the ice,
Recoverable,
A decent dps check,
Can be single or double tanked,

And best of all......

The boss is always facing away from the group (SORRY TANKS)

[Ashkendor]

No cheap instant death mechanics, (mechanics where if you mess up you only take at most one guy with you, AND NOT THE WHOLE TEAM unlike coil. ),

If you don't get the adds down before her Diamond Dust cast, she wipes the raid.

She also has a hard enrage that does the same thing.

The boss is always facing away from the group (SORRY TANKS)

What, you thought we were running behind her to dodge Glacier Bash?

[odie]

I agree.

Garuda EX is pretty much the perfect fight.
- When average ILVLs were in the mid to lower 90's, difficulty was perfect.
- There was more than one way to complete the challenge.
- Two PLD? Two WHM? No problem. You never fealt like you had to have class diversity; people brought what they wanted.

I personally find Garuda EX boring. The repeating phases makes me bored fast. What I enjoyed was how Twintania, and Ultima change as you fight them. Different attacks and mechanics keeping you on your toes. If they made every fight anything like Garuda, then I'd lose any motivation to play them.

[Zaft]

I actually really enjoy difficulty slopes. It's one of the things I love about many single player RPGs. You're fighting a boss and it's difficult but totally doable. But as you get further and further, he fights harder and more desperate, and by the end it's a mad dash to beat him before you just completely run out of steam. The damage output is immense, you're running out of consumables, maybe there's a time/turn limit, etc. Fights should get significantly harder as you near the end, because the enemy should be pulling out all the stops to prevent his end.

[Almalexia]

my main issues is repeating the first phases again and again and again and again until u learn the last 1 enough to win...by the time u learned last 1 , the first phases are done blindfolded....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill

Shiva EX is the perfect fight in my opinion

This is a model EX encounter. It's not too easy, it's not too difficult, and the AI has some variance to keep things interesting. It's not full-on, sear-you-in-the-ass 1.0 Ifrit EX random, but maybe we will get there one day.

[Krr]

Did he even said that ? Titan EX is fine and fun, of course if you don't get screwed by your ISP.

Yep. this interview right here that he didn't know how badly lag affected old 2.0-2.1 fights like TEX and Twintania until he played them in Sydney, and couldn't even reliably dodge attacks like Landslide and Weights on those connections because of how much easier and smoother they were in lag-free Japanese ISPs.

If you look at all the fights since SCOB, the timing windows to react to mechanics on 'hardcore' fights have actually gotten significantly wider as a result.

[Niqote]

My favourite fights in the game so far in no order are:

Ultima, Titan X, Shiva X, Cerberus, T5, T11

[Ooshima]

Fun fights?

Lets have Demon Wall back to it's original difficulty, attuned for current gears

[ruskie]

Hmm fun fights for me:
T5, T9, T7(pre nerf and amusing post nerf), T10, Shiva ex, Titan(any), Levi Ex, Ultima Ex, Chrysalis, most of Wod

Hmmm I don't know if others ever notice this but for example for T9 elements... the movement for the elements is almost 1:1 match for T6 devour mechanic(and if you link it up a bit... could work with conflag/fireball from T5 to stand alone/group up except it's happening at the same time). People stack on tank while the marked person goes to stand on their own in a patch(hell even the LoS methods would work). They just built on it a bit more with the fire in/out. Thermionic beam is the same mechanic as missile in t8 where you need to group up. T7 fireballs prod at people to spread out like for streams in T9. So yes they do build up on the previous turns mechanics. It's usually just not as obvious and they do need to add something unique to them as well.

On top of that some of the mechanics are trying to teach the party itself to not tunnel vision. But to be honest if you look at any of the mechanic of any fight you are more than likely to find it was used in another fight just slightly different.