Boss Fight Mechanics

[QiLymePye]

I have been saying this all along about the fights in this game being scripted. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching WWE or something. It kills me when others talk about how to "properly use" the job. If anything, SE is holding everyones hand and saying "if you want to beat this boss, you have to fight exactly like this". And it shows in people posting vids on how to beat bosses. Imagine how many vids we would have if there was more than 3 ways to beat a boss? And I don't mean slight variations in timing, I mean completely different way to approach a boss. They need more variety in boss encounters, and yes, make the stages have more impact on the fight. It should be that even if you have op gear on, that you still have to pay attention, not just tank and spank.

[Zumi]

The other thing about FFXI was a lot of fights that people thought well their tp moves do too much damage. Bahamut 2, and Dynamis lord for example, the strat of choice was chainspell stun melee zerg with 2 hour abilities.

Here is what the hard mode Bahamut fight in FFXI was like for those who don't remember, not my video but there are tons of them up.
with drks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjxJElp_U8s
without https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR0lOcnAdFE

Rdm chainspell stun (keeping the boss from doing anything to you) while everyone else melee him with 2 hours and have bard songs on. Dark had the best 2 hour because you could soul eater blood weapon. They spend more time casting songs and haste then actually fighting Bahamut.

I did bahamut so many times in FFXI. It took no skill at all. The dumb part was the strat relied on using 2 hour abilities so if we did more then 1 fight we sat around for 2 hours waiting for them to come back. Now compare that to the FFXIV Bahamut fight which is way more fun and takes more skill to do.

[Catsby]

XI had plenty of sidestepping AOE but it wasn't painted onto the terrain for everyone to clearly see.

Overall I don't think XI bosses are harder than XIV bosses. I'm pretty sure they were actually much easier but you would never know since you couldn't spam them to the extend that you can in XIV. Think about it, if you fail at <insert your turn number here> what's stopping the group from trying again if everyone wants to? In XI there were triggers that needed to be collected, meds and resources that needed to be prepared ahead of time and sometimes a 24-72 hour lockout after the first attempt. Things always seem much more difficult if you don't (or can't) practice them over and over.

[Duelle]

Nefarian's class call-outs from WoW. That boss would "call out" one of the classes within your raid comp, and different things would happen depending on what class is called out.

In FFXIV tems: calling out DRGs could make all DRGs jump, putting three of their jumps on cooldown (Jump, Elusive Jump, Spineshatter Dive) and causing them to take fall damage upon landing. WHM cures would deal damage to party members if the boss were to call out WHMs. The boss would become invincible if the boss calls out PLDs. Any WARs in the raid would go berserk and start attacking party members. And so on.

[OMEGA_HACK]

XI has more tactical thinking when it came to what to do to said monsters, the rotations were also a lot longer as you were juggling damage/debuffs/buffs. Combat was slower in terms of "something always happening" though, which allowed for recovery.
XIV has more memorization and scripted fighting, but less to juggle in terms of debuffs and buffs. Combat is faster in terms of "something always happening" which makes recovery less likely.

Neither is harder than the other, however they offer drastically different play styles, honestly there is no reason why XIV cannot have the gameplay style of XI from time to time, with more focus on the player's tactical skill and less on our reactionary skill.

[MagnamStyle]

A boss where he splits himself equal to the amount of players in the field so you'd have a 1v1 match,
you must either survive this phase or kill the target by yourself

ganging up on 1 clone would 'merge' the focused target with the number of attackers' 'ignored' clones -1(the original target) and it's stats increase would exponentially(not additively). you can only help in killing the others once you're done with your own 'duel'.

the boss then gains a minor strength boost if he manages to win a 'duel'

or how about some Sea/Ocean battles? it can be that everyone has a fixed ship and you have to choose upgrades until the end of the dungeon(resets at the end).