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.

[Catsby]

stuff about fafnir

You aren't wrong but you boiled it down a little too much and left out important mechanics inherit to all fights, which excluding from any fight in particular will make it seem shallow.

Other important points:
Fafnir was very early boss in an early expansion.
Resource management in XI was extremely intensive compare to XIV.
Enmity was far more complex in XI than XIV.
Bosses weren't immune to most status effects.
Many more that I'm too tired to remember.

So while many bosses felt like tank and spank they still had a lot of challenging things to be mindful of.

I think what OP and other people in this thread are looking for are fights where you don't mindlessly go through your rotation while occasionally avoiding some environmental hazard.

[Zumi]

You aren't wrong but you boiled it down a little too much and left out important mechanics inherit to all fights, which excluding from any fight in particular will make it seem shallow.

Other important points:
Fafnir was very early boss in an early expansion.
Resource management in XI was extremely intensive compare to XIV.
Enmity was far more complex in XI than XIV.
Bosses weren't immune to most status effects.
Many more that I'm too tired to remember.

So while many bosses felt like tank and spank they still had a lot of challenging things to be mindful of.

I think what OP and other people in this thread are looking for are fights where you don't mindlessly go through your rotation while occasionally avoiding some environmental hazard.

Fafnir was added in the Zilart expansion which was the first FFXI expansion almost the same point were are now with FFXIV with the first expansion about to come out so it is a fair comparison to what we see now. Almost every fight in FFXI were tank and spank and heal. Because the game was made on PS2 so they don't have a lot of the dodge aoe mechanics there really was no rotation in FFXI it was auto attack until you got 100 TP to use a WS, with the ocassional 3-5 min job ability like beserk, warcry, thrown in.

[Darra]

In cases like those, it definitely stands that Medica II isn't a good ability to use. However, in Final Coil, there's at least one instance in each turn where the entire party is taking tons of damage, and often in relatively frequent occurrences (as often as once a minute). Medica II is great for those.

Strangely enough, this thread is asking for ideas on what mechanics for new fights, so me saying I'd like a boss that instantly kills WHM's using Medica 2 more than once per 3 minutes, is perfectly valid. I am also entirely aware of T13 and how it works, so my question would be; why're you insisting on pointing out the validity on using a spell in fights that currently exist? We're stating wishes for new encounters, not editing existing ones.

[Catsby]

To me the game is most fun when a fight doesn't spiral out of control because 1 person died. There are too many encounters where success hinges on everyone doing their thing properly.

[Wournsfeik_Untawhasyn]

... FFXI Boss snip ...

I find it interesting when folks compare ARR to RotZ, when ARR is really more like Vanilla in XI's lifecycle. But I digress...

Most bosses in XI were a matter of invalidating their random mechanics. "Proto" Omega, as a for instance, was where Shadow-tanking got it's teeth cut. Omega would positively ruin a meat tank, and so they had to work out a way to not take the massive damage that Omega could dish out. Enter the NIN/WAR, who was so good at holding Enmity a good one was way more preferable than any PLD (the defacto tank class for a long while) could ever hope to be. And even to this day PLDs are only brought along to meet tank only if they have Aegis/Ochain because without those they take way too much damage to justify not bringing a NIN.

And bosses weren't immune to most status effects because for the most part they didn't need to be. Most of what the players could do to them were piddly effects or their resistances were so huge it took Elemental Seal + The Debuff to stick for any real length of time. Anything you could stick easy used to be so bad that for a while there RDM's were laughed out the door because besides En-spells and Refresh which anyone could now SJ, that's all they were there for. When your debuffs are so laughable that people would be like 'Chainstun? Hah, that's just cute, go level a real job' you've got to wonder.

That all being said, the point in FFXI wasn't really the fights per se, but the prep for the fights. Without prep a boss would positively destroy you, with prep however, content usually wasn't super hard, just very technical. The onus then became for players to put forth the time to be prepared, where the closest we get to that is 'eat your food' (which was mandatory in XI due to it basically being as good as another piece of gear)

[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.

[RyuDragnier]

To me the game is most fun when a fight doesn't spiral out of control because 1 person died. There are too many encounters where success hinges on everyone doing their thing properly.

This. I really don't like fights where the entire party must pay for 1 person's mistake, though this mostly applies to Coil. Still haven't seen a T9 clear due to groups being unable to pass Meteors or Divebombs.

[Alkimi]

Y
I think what OP and other people in this thread are looking for are fights where you don't mindlessly go through your rotation while occasionally avoiding some environmental hazard.

None of Final Coil is "mindless". What you're describing are most regular dungeon bosses, which are going to be easy anyway.

[StouterTaru]

So the whole fight boiled down to. Curaga when he uses wind, heal the tanks that are tanking Fafnir, everyone else does damage. This took way less skill then anything in FFXIV.

Fafnir is a bad example of a skilled fight in FFXI, but the majority of FFXIV isn't much more difficult.

Difficult FFXIV fights are just a choreographed dance. Once you learn the steps, there's very little improvisation. Skill is knowing what's about to happen, and reacting quickly to it. FFXIV just has more going on faster.

Many of the FFXI fights would be rough with FFXIV mechanics; no 2 hours and built up status resistances. Of course, the bosses using 2 hour abilities were what made them so hard most of the time.

A lot of FFXI hard bosses had a move that would slap down a tank but took a short wind up, so they were kited around. One of my favorite fights was kiting Kirin, pulling hate as BLM and running like hell. I would like to see one of those in FFXIV.