Content should be challenging to execute... Not challenging to learn

[Monty]

If we mean one shotting it blind, I doubt many could do it. If we mean after 2+ tries of going at it blind, then yes, monkeys can eventually figure out what's going on.

[Welsper59]

Honestly, the only dynamic thing any part of life has, on an exclusively individual level, is the learning aspect. It's new and foreign to us, even if the subject matter may not be to someone else, so we have to basically start as a clean slate. It's also temporary, as it'll no longer be surprising once you've learned it. Proper execution is generally an act of repetition, which comes AFTER you learn how to do it. There's nothing actually challenging about mindlessly throwing something at a wall repeatedly or doing something you've done countless times in the past. Is the Rubik's Cube difficult to someone who has solved the puzzle hundreds, if not thousands, of times? Is basic addition/subtraction difficult to an accountant?

The idea of adding RNG to keep a fight fresh would not work well, if that were to be a retort. In the case of boss fights in a game, adding every element of RNG to the encounter makes it difficult to balance. If you wanted to add an ability to the boss that makes them invincible for 10sec while you have to kill/lure adds across the room to key positions, it'd be possible for this boss to do this repeatedly because RNG, thus possibly making it impossible to win. If you limit how often it can be used or at what intervals, it becomes predictable... no challenge once you've seen it and "learned" how to get through it, despite the intent of having that RNG there for it. In other words, you'd be pretty much where things are now. Boss fights like Bismarck EX are very faceroll mechanically. It's more or less all about your setup (gear, jobs, etc) and familiarity of the story version. Fights like T9 are relatively refreshing, albeit possibly TOO lengthy in the mechanics lol. T9 could have easily done away with something like the hot/cold mechanic and still have been new and challenging while you progressed.

Learning is a huge part about what makes a game fun, despite the negative connotation a rather large percentage of the population might view "learning" to be. It's not scary, and is in fact, something you do daily... hopefully, unless you're a vegetable or dead. It can certainly be overwhelming at times, but it rarely hits that point for a game like this. T9 is one of the only examples of that, where learning mechanics can be overwhelming (not the part of actually being able to do them). You're going to fail as you learn, that's just normal. So unless you want to do the exact same thing for every single encounter time and time again, you're going to have to suck it up and learn something new once in a while.

[CGMidlander]

Remember Steps of Faith? Incredibly easy to learn (hell, there are even text box prompts as the fight progresses) and required simple execution.

"Nerf pls! Anyone who says otherwise is a stoopid elitist!"

*nerfed*

[Chihaya]

-snip-

Yet thread on the same page complaining A4 is too hard

This is easy mode and alot of the mechanics are similar to coil.
Hmmm alot of balls coming to 1 target, better intercept some for them.
Adds that should probably be not kept together.
Stacking debuff is bad when goes too high.
Getting this debuff that passes on and damage another player when I come in contact with them

Or just trial and errors things like killing the leg with adds out give the boss a buff - should probably avoid it
2 lasers kills people, should have at least 2 people intercept the lines... and look for it after adds are out during p2

Ravana EX blind huh...
I'll be surprised if you passed with no knowledge of Swift liberation or people not going on panic mode and scatter after pillar of heavens then having laughing rose one shot people. Then also dealing with the tethered orbs. Hence you admit someone had to explain the last phase - which also meant it was not blind. There are some orders of the fight you need to memorize. You might have been blind but I'm sure some of the other players had an idea already what was going on.

For the first groups that clear this, there was alot more trial and error to figure out what went on, not a go in blind and lolwin
My group that went in for the first time had just 1 experienced person. We were able to make it to Bloody Fuller relatively quick but it was alot of grinding and learning after that.

[Khalithar]

I'd be fine with going in blind in learning mechanics if they gave you some idea of what to do. For instance in A1, one of my party members ran through the add debuff and got shrunk, that's when we came up with the idea of putting it under the missiles, none of us had done the fight before.

While in A4 with the judgment debuff, it doesn't accurately explain what to do with it or what it does. That is what I'd call a bad way to do things, they shouldn't be stingy with information.

I really think this game needs a dungeon journal like WoW where it tells you what the boss mechanics are and what they do so you have some idea of what will happen when you go in. But just because you have an idea of what the mechanics are, you still need to figure out the specific strategy around the mechanics and practice until you know what they look like and what to watch out for.

Edit:

This is easy mode and alot of the mechanics are similar to coil.

Not everyone that plays the game ever did coil. I've already cleared Alexander, all four floors, and started the game about a month and a half ago at the end of may. I didn't have time to do coil as I was focused on Main Story Quests and getting my ilevel up before HW, I have no idea what any of the coil mechanics are, what the zones are like, or exactly what coil even is. It would be a better bet to assume that the people doing Alexander right now have never done coil.

[Chihaya]

It was me explaining why Alexander was cleared within 2hrs after release, because raider are already used to dealing with the mechanics (not exactly the same but many similarities) and the whole thing is very simple compared to previous raids. I also cleared it on the first day it was released - I had people that cleared it earlier act as guides. I didn't do any reading/video watching myself beforehand. I would say I was carried in the first round but as we get more and more new people through I began to carry more weight in the runs.

And yes there are definitely more people doing Alexander that never done coil before that's why there's this other thread complaining how hard it is to PUG A4 and your mention of Judgement.

[Khalithar]

And yes there are definitely more people doing Alexander that never done coil before that's why there's this other thread complaining how hard it is to PUG A4 and your mention of Judgement.

I personally don't think A4 pugging is too hard on anyone except the healers! I don't think the fight itself is too hard, I'm just annoyed by the lack of information about things like perpetual laser and how the judgment debuff works.

[Eisenhower]

I'd be fine with going in blind in learning mechanics if they gave you some idea of what to do. For instance in A1, one of my party members ran through the add debuff and got shrunk, that's when we came up with the idea of putting it under the missiles, none of us had done the fight before.

While in A4 with the judgment debuff, it doesn't accurately explain what to do with it or what it does. That is what I'd call a bad way to do things, they shouldn't be stingy with information.

If you're referring to the Judgement Nisi A/B ability, it is clear from the tooltip of the debuff. It says "You have Judgment A or B and that receiving the other judgement will result in a death sentence". It is not a stretch of the imagination to infer from this that you do not want the other debuff. Considering the fact that the Judgement Nisi only applies to healers (unless you're busy wiping) that spend their time watching the party list anyway, it is also not a challenging task to see that another debuff has been placed among the party members. I argue that there's no lack or obfuscation of information happening.

I really think this game needs a dungeon journal like WoW where it tells you what the boss mechanics are and what they do so you have some idea of what will happen when you go in. But just because you have an idea of what the mechanics are, you still need to figure out the specific strategy around the mechanics and practice until you know what they look like and what to watch out for.

Let me apologize in advance for my french, so to speak. But the dungeon journal in WoW is a piece of shit that should never exist in the form it does now. The level of information it provides and the time at which it provides that information makes it a guide to solve an encounter from the very developers themselves.

If the journal provided this information some time after the release of content, then sure. It helps those people that have fallen behind. If the journal provided information that was diffuse but acted as hints to figure out a strange mechanic, then sure, it helps players overcome a hurdle. Unless I'm mistaken the journal provides detailed information (e.g. At 10% the boss will do <thing>, this is how you conteract it.) the moment the patch hits, or even before that if PTRs are involved.

Endgame encounters are in essence puzzles that are solved with coordination and violence. Half the challenge is figuring out what the pieces of the puzzle is. With the dungeon journal, that half of the challenge is removed and just placed in front of the user.

The journal coddles the player. It removes incentive for players to be attentive and catch audiovisual cues from the game environment as well as for players to read tooltips and piece the fragments of information together to form a solution to the problem set before them.

You said yourself that players shared information. That is exactly the same as watching a video or reading a strategy.

Are you telling me that going in blind, wiping, observing and then chatting with your party members in order to devise a strategy against the boss is the same as watching a video or reading a guide text online? Gods forfend.