Punishing, Challenging, or Just Plain Frustrating.

[Aegrus]

Really, is there anything in this game that is truly difficult, or is it just punishing you arbitrarily?

This answer probably differs depending on class and role. Melee DPS play a different game than ranged. Tanks and Healers work together, but have an entirely different focus than a DPS. Casters want huge aoe pulls, melee cry at all the aoe that punishes them for their role and get upset at the tank for constantly rotating targets (since they have to to avoid the aoe). Ranged get upset when they are forced to move for a mechanic, and as a melee that's a large majority of what you do in a fight.

For this, I will use an examples in Bismarck, Ravana, or lower level content as very few are actually doing or capable of savage modes, and forgive me if I used melee examples more often as I believe encounters largely favor ranged, but more on that will follow. (You are welcome to make your own thread or post. and I'm sure you will make your own post saying why I am shit and you are the exception...special snowflakes...etc..)

There are a handful of mechanics that are difficult and require some skill to overcome, such as learning how to do Ravana's or Bismarck's phase transitions, but a large portion of them can be punishing.

A big example of this is the "HEY I'M CHARGIN' MAH SPIN" point-blank-area-of-effects (pbAoEs). While this is occasionally part of a transition, it becomes frustrating when these punishing effects are additionally hampered by latency and the fact that you must be touching the boss at all times, so dodging them becomes a 30yalm dash to safety, but you have to balance between participating in the fight and staying alive (how close to cut it). This becomes more frustrating to melee when they see a ranged class safely sitting at max range that just ignores that mechanic.

These frustrations are often magnified in between these effects when the boss randomly faces party members to destroy positional requirements for skills that again affect only melee.


Now, I know that many ranged argue that they have to move and do casts and this severely hurts their game play, but so do melee, every time the boss does an aoe, or a random aoe is on the boss, melee are forced to do nothing while they wait for the smoke to clear. Tornados (and some bosses) from bismarck and neverreap cause melee to literally stare at their target while it goes by constantly (higher concentration of players in one spot mean tornado target that spot more often) where as most ranged just dodge and go back to targeting from another safe spot.

If you want to talk savage, I only have specific experience with A1, and I will point out that resin bombs, adds (esp adds on resinbombs), and the randomness of missile placement can straight up wipe a fight just because you can't touch a boss. Yes you can compensate for this to some extent, but melee are a liability, if you could have a party of a smn, bard, blm, and a dragoon it would be ideal, and the only thing that would make it better is if you could replace the dragoon with a machinist if you don't need the melee lb or feel you need the piercing debuff.



It gets old, and I am sure I will get the usual comments of " ITS PERFECT, WHY DO U H8 YOSHIP," "Git gud," or or thinly disguised posts that's sole purpose is to piggy back a thread just to inflate their own ego. However, I believe these types of comments detract from meaningful conversations and distract from any meaningful message that developers may interpret. This game does have problems, and if you don't agree with me, you are free to say so, but specific examples as to why current mechanics are ideal would be appreciated.

[AsteriaStarfall]

Unfortunately the meaning of difficult can be different to each person. What one person finds a challenge, another person might just see it as a time sink.

To use your own example about the dodging of mechanics. You are right, there is a fine line between participating in the fight, and getting out of the way in time. That right there is the challenge. You know the enemy's cast will take a second or two, so do you either let your cast get off, or do you move? That is the challenge to me, but you see it as a punishing.

As for your example of melee vs ranged. That is the challenge of being right up at the boss, you have your own mechanics to watch out for, while not having to worry about the ranged mechanics. I can't tell you the number of boss fights that have specific mechanics for ranged, that melee never have to worry about.

So while you have your own version of challenge and difficulty, so do I, and apparently we do not see it the same.

[CosmicKirby]

I find that the challenge in the end game PvE content is really a multifaceted experience, and trying to point at the whole and determining if it's arbitrary or not is not only difficult, but is missing the point.

Compare the challenge in A1S or BisEX to other challenging games. Let's say, a puzzle game such as Pokemon Puzzle League (The "puzzle" mode in particular), and a difficult platformer such as Super Meat Boy. Both of these games can be described as challenging, and I haven't really heard either of them have their challenge called arbitrary. In Puzzle League, the challenge lies in figuring out the solution. You're aware of all possible abilities and facets of the puzzle, you just have to find the proper solution to finish it. In Super Meat Boy, there isn't really a puzzling element to the difficulty, it's obvious at a glance what must be done, but the challenge lies in forcing the player to execute moves in a very precise matter, and these moves have a great room for nuanced differences in execution. Mastery in Super Meat Boy comes when you realize the nuances in the platforming, and mastery in Puzzle League comes when you can plan and find the solution.

This entire tangent is to say, that I find the PvE content to encompass both facets, albeit in varying levels of each for each encounter.
There is very much a problem solving element in A1S. If your group has formed a proper strategy for it, there's virtually no situation where an "impossible" setup of the missiles and spazers will completely block off your dps from their adds. There's a very set time where both the resin bombs will drop, and the spazers are fired. Ideally, my static had each dps grab a general quadrant of the arena, and in the likelihood that it wasn't immediately obvious which one to take we briefly communicated who would handle what missiles. Further, we took pains to try and drop the resin bombs in a predictable fashion that wouldn't impede the melee dps as much, such as stacking to a single flank for the duration of the cast of resin bomb, leaving the other flank and rear open for them.
The Platforming-like challenge in A1S is simple, it's the DPS-check of the enrage timer. It's a test of the abilities of the players that demands they be used at least as well to survive and meet a certain requirement of their damage. Much like in Super Meat Boy, where there might be ways to make a jump easier or faster, there are occasions where DPS should be applying themselves to notice the nuance of mechanics. This has been the entire reason why my static was able to get passed Hand of Pain on A3S, we had to change our rotations to save them all for a very tight DPS-check, as well as be careful to not have dots up on both targets.

This is all to say that I don't find the challenge arbitrary. There are certain mechanics that I can see have unintended challenging aspects to them, (Whenever wash away decides to push both tanks/healers into the same direction and have them digitize each other immediately) but I find that to be the exception rather than the rule.

Further, I do not play melee DPS, but those mechanics are in place to prevent the fight from becoming a training dummy. In which case, competent melee (probably a DRG) would completely demolish the DPS of any ranged. You're not supposed to freely land all of your positionals in these fights, but it's the great players who find ways to maximize their opportunities to do so. It's just a quirk of the difference between melee and ranged, and the only fight so far that I've seen heavily favor ranged over melee was RavEX (namely the ball phase).