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

[lololink]

I disagree. I'm pretty confident that no matter how long you spend learning about how to pilot a jet you couldn't do it your first try. You could easily watch and read about anything in FFXIV and execute it flawlessly on your first attempt. The skill part of the game would be learning your class and abilities, but if you already knew that then the boss encounters themselves are nothing after knowing what to do.

Mwahahahaahahahahhaahahahah, very funny, keepy going ! Oh my twelve, Bahamut must be laughing so hard right now !

[Viridiana]

You could easily watch and read about anything in FFXIV and execute it flawlessly on your first attempt.

Because so many groups one-shot T9. Or T13. Or T5. Or any of the Savage Coil. Or most of the Extremes.

Speaking of which, I have to ask. Is this an alt character? Because I notice you haven't cleared any of that content. Maybe before talking about how little skill is involved you could actually clear the content we're discussing? Or post on your main so I can take you seriously? Something?

[MythToken]

Bismark Ex for example isn't a mechanically complex boss.

He was interesting content without requiring your to study for a good hour to clear him. Bismark Ex tested how good you are at your job and how good you are at dodging, not how much time you spent reading a book on bismark ex.

T9 on the other hand was full of ridiculous and unintuitive mechanics.

Come on Square, you can create unique and interesting mechanics without requiring a massively steep learning curve that requires players countless hours to memorize everything that's happening.

I dont understand you point OP. Bismark came out after T9. So it appears Square Enix is dong exactly what you want?

[Andevom]

Memorization of mechanics is only part of the equation in many of these battles, and it's usually the first thing you're made aware of though experience.

I'll use myself as an example: I can be a fairly decent player. At the moment, and I won't mince words, I suck at Ravana Extreme. I've only tried it twice, but it's one of those fights I'm not consistent in yet. I'm aware of the mechanics, but when I focus on them too much, my DPS suffers because I keep trying to preempt them. When I try to output more DPS, I get sloppier with where I need to go. It's a balance of "mechanics awareness" and job proficiency, because if either one of these is off, things won't go well. And through experience, you get better at that balance and it becomes second nature.

[Leon_Stormrage]

I cannot imagine how boring it could be to start the fight: "Pew pew... wow look I am on a big circle of death i should step outside, pew pew the boss yelled that if the add stays alive for X time she/he/it will become stronger so I might want to kill him quickly, pew pew... look the boss is death cheers! "..........

[Monty]

Not sure why people play MMOs for this type of challenge. If you want something that requires execution skill while using your brain, go play a game like Street Fighter or King of Fighters. That's all on your execution and up to you not to get read like a book by your opponent. There's only so much they can do with 8 people raids while online. You start throwing in "random" mechanics and such, most parties won't complete any content.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Titan HM fits the description of not hard to learn, but hard to execute. Guess what? People can't do it. They complain its hard.

[Velia]

The issue is that your magical fight that has few mechanics but is still difficult doesn't exist.

Bahamut Prime wants a word with you.
Though it still has counter intuitive mechanics, at least it doesn't spray you with a ton of them.

As an side it saddens me that so many are willing to accept the illogic of typical MMO raid mechanics that can only be mastered with trial and error.
I'm not saying trial and error is an entirely bad thing though.. (of course, intolerant clear and "learning" groups do). However it seems that nowadays it's just taken for granted that a boss's actions will leave you clueless unless you've read a guide or repeatedly experienced it the hard way.

Hell, in Ravana you must do a different thing with the SAME MECHANIC (specifically, Prey) depending on the stage of the fight. In fact, while the first Prey is intuitive enough (we know that Prey in this game means you should generally run to a tank), the second suddenly becomes "stand way over here and wait for someone to come to you".

I've had it up to here with replies of "get good" from wannabe blue gartrs. It's not a question of "getting good", it's a question of some of us wanting fun, intuitive fights that are a challenge and not step-by-step checklists.

[Velia]

Titan HM fits the description of not hard to learn, but hard to execute. Guess what? People can't do it. They complain its hard.

Titan is fundamentally broken design, it's markers for the line punch and puddles are misleading, or come up too late. They always have. Titan is a very bad benchmark to use for this.

[SirDiscoFrog]

Alexander got cleared within 2hr after it came out... you say they followed a guide? There wasn't one.

^Exactly and the main idea of this post is applicable to all the 3.0 raid content. There was a good amount of time of there being no guides for the Exs as folk were figuring out/making guides for dungeons instead.

Bismark Ex is doable blind
This fight was so simple and it just required paying attention and dodging. It was quite straight forward. The only hard part was that dps check was a bit of a pain for some when adding on dodging tornadoes + the debuff, especially when tank swaps got awkward. This fight is one of those things where if folk payed attention to their debuffs and BisHM it could be one-shotted blind.

Ravana Ex is doable blind.
This fight has a lot going on and even then most of it was just updated versions of the HM. The only mechanics that didn't seem very obvious at first and cause the most trouble was prey dives and positioning for larger dive AoEs. The newer mechanics introduced were in other trials/instances, like the orbs that were in chimera. With that said its a fight where you dont need to know exactly when everything is happening. Watching how the boss moves gives a sense of what he is going to do. Giant parry shield hints, his super crazy charge up attacks where for most of them you are either stacks right behind him or on a wall, extremely large AoE markers. Once you exprience it, one doesnt have to memorize the order of his phases at all.

A1-4 are also doable without a guide imo. Did 1-3 blind and 4 i was going in blind but someone had said all the mechanics before the fight. It takes a bit more trail and error than the ex's for the higher levels but every fight that's suppose to be hard should. A few mechanics in these fights were once again done in other fights and the newer ones imo are quite fun and interesting mechanics wise without being that painful to figure out. Using a gobbie carts to move bombs, Killing an add for its mini field on rockets, the A4 'fun room', etc. Savage of course will probably be way more brutal but the exs and coils/alex is suppose to be the hardest content in the game. Watching a vid might help but its really not needed and even after watching a vid there will still be plenty of wipes as one has to actually experience it.

Titan HM fits the description of not hard to learn, but hard to execute. Guess what? People can't do it. They complain its hard.

Agreed. Move out the way when you need to or get wrecked, that fight is the definition of pay attention or die and mechanics wise its just the bare bones basics of dodge the thing and dont die. I don't buy the excuse of its broken considering how now all of a sudden with people being over geared everyone can now dodge and the countless times ive watched folk try to get off one last cast/attack and think that just because they made an effort to move it should be rewarded. After a while you should realize to move asap.