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

[Jonnycbad]

Most raid mechanics are self taught by playing, in every single case. Take T10 for example. Imdugud doesn't start the fight with Tether-Charge, does he? He does Charge first part of the fight, then HL second part of the fight. Then, once you get good and used to those, he starts mixing them together. So SE rarely throws mechanics at you unfairly, there's always a gradual buildup.

The thing is, marks should be streamlined in my opinion. When you enter a new fight for the first time and get a mark, it could be ANYTHING. You don't know if something is gonna drop on your head, if something is gonna divebomb you, if it's an aoe bomb that need to be soaked by everyone, etc. They should start streamlining mark colors/shapes so that ALL RED MARKS = X, ALL GREEN MARKS=Y, ALL METEOR MARKS=Z.

Some mechanics gice you no clue or hint and it's a bit unfair I think. In other MMO's they at least give you a hint or a chance to avoid things, without having to have the world's first few raid groups wipe a dozen times to learn how mechanics work so the rest of the community can profit. When Ravana does Liberation and it splits 40,000 damage amongst your party, you have NO idea that's coming when the white mark appears. You just see a white mark, and bam everyone dies, then you have to restart from scratch. It doesn't make the game 'easier' if Ravana were to say something in dialogue that clued you in on what to do.


It doesn't make the first few groups to clear without videos 'pros' because they wiped a dozen times to uncover the properties of every mechanic, it's just a time sink. One thing FFXI had that made fights a bit more interesting was that abilites were random. 99% of 2.0 raids were telegraphed, scripted battles. Bosses went through predictable phases with predicable attack orders and would cycle through their abilities in order, every single time. In FFXI you had to think on your feet and adapt when a boss used their most obnoxiously powerfully unavoidable move 3x in a row. I think that needs to be incorporated a bit more in FFXIV. Ravana's liberations are randomized after 50% or so and Bismarck's weathers are randomized, but most fights still follow scripted formats. It's 1...2..3.. JUMP!.....1....2....3 RUN. Just very predictable mechanics.