Are we as players afraid of a challenge?

[Nuna]

Lmao. Someone wants to remove flying. Do you really think making travel time longer is challenging?

[Shurrikhan]

Lmao. Someone wants to remove flying. Do you really think making travel time longer is challenging?

By itself, no. But since having flight does remove all topographical complexity of a map, and since there isn't presently any airborne complexity to replace that with...

(I guess maybe in the Sea of Clouds you can trim a few seconds' travel time by remembering which island your target area is hidden behind and/or cutting between them at a consistent angle of ascent or decent, but that's all the complexity of taking the shortest path from A to B. There are no flying enemies, nothing to accelerate travel, nor any appreciable flight physics to make it more exciting.)

There's plenty that can be made to give flight challenges of its own, and in some cases even make the ground safer and slower while the skies are riskier but more rewarding. Just as you can do with ground mounts vs. going on foot if you had mount health, turning speed, morale, etc. It's just that the game is entirely bare-bones in those areas.

[Shurrikhan]

I think that attitude stems from the content being more of a dance with specific steps that must be done a certain way to ensure the party doesn't wipe. Naturally, people will have to practice more ( or less ) depending on skill level, and finding consistent groups at the same level can be difficult, as we've seen over the years. Again, I'd just like to stress that content difficulty should not mean "more phases" in trials, but instead content that can be considered difficult while being able to be handled dynamically.

While I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more variance in means of handling a given mechanic in a few fights, I don't think there's anything wrong with dance fights, especially when there's still enough leniency not to interrupt casts constantly (or if such is used for fitting spectacle, as in T9S, used rarely enough that casters aren't significantly devalued compared to their later bonuses). Done right, it gives a neat sense of being pulled along by the mechanics, getting a handle on its flow, finally ascending over or staying atop them, only to be introduced to a new current. Now, that's a rarity, but that feeling does come directly from the patterned positional relative and exact intervals of 'dance fights'.

I'd like to see other ways of approaching fight design, just as if possible I'd like to see more pattern and less script, something that'd have you looking more at your allies than at a rotational sheet, within 'dance fights' themselves. (Heck, if you could imagine a trial that doesn't even have combat, exactly, literally being a dance of sorts to appease the spirits where you're as much creative as reactive, as awesomely as you can imagine that incredibly vague concept, and then merge the two... it'd probably be something like that or within the spectrum of that combination.) Pretty much exactly as you had bolded. A bit less rigidity, in what design types we have, and within the design types we have.

...Also, I wonder if we're ever going to get sub-targets, e.g. Brachiosaurus feet and its head...

[CookieMonsta]

While I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more variance in means of handling a given mechanic in a few fights, I don't think there's anything wrong with dance fights, especially when there's still enough leniency not to interrupt casts

One fight which I dearly missed from my previous MMO was one where it was effectively an Arena with 20 waves of mobs thrown at you and an 8 minute hard enrage. Now each and every mob puts crippling debuffs on the team (like Vul up and damage down or slows etc etc) to the extent where the healers have to immediately triage which debuff is the most important to remove and which to just deal with. And to top it off, if someone dies, they get a Weakness 15% stat down stackable till 5 with a 1 minute duration.

This was a Savage level trial and there were many ways you could approach the fight like bringing more tanks and healers would mean an easier time with the debuffs but you risk enrage, or bringing more DPS and hard burn but risk one mistake costing the whole 8 minute run.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

The five headed dragon in the World of Darkness kind of fits the bill of a multi-targeted foe, though it only happens once it starts building up its insta wipe attack.

[Shurrikhan]

The five headed dragon in the World of Darkness kind of fits the bill of a multi-targeted foe, though it only happens once it starts building up its insta wipe attack.

I was thinking more along the lines of areas that are tactically, rather than just reactively, targetable. Taking on a large Garlean mech, you can take out its knees, apply knockbacks to its feet mid-step, take out its sensors (elevation breaks or multipliers meaning this is best done from atop the nearby towers, which can be taken out by the mech), take out its arms, its main cannon, and so forth. There may end up being a conventional order to it, but each variation in composition, prior items (picked up sapper satchels, etc., placed in key items specific to the instance and bindable to the bar), environmental weapons remaining (cannons saved), preparative work (supporting airships taken down or hyjacked?) can really play into different priorities or preference, and each start to a kill order gives multiple consequent follow-ups. Just another way to throw in some interesting complexities... while also not striking thin air 30 ft below the belly of the beast you're trying to punch.

[Sandpark]

I was thinking more along the lines of areas that are tactically, rather than just reactively, targetable. Taking on a large Garlean mech, you can take out its knees, apply knockbacks to its feet mid-step, take out its sensors (elevation breaks or multipliers meaning this is best done from atop the nearby towers, which can be taken out by the mech), take out its arms, its main cannon, and so forth. There may end up being a conventional order to it, but each variation in composition, prior items (picked up sapper satchels, etc., placed in key items specific to the instance and bindable to the bar), environmental weapons remaining (cannons saved), preparative work (supporting airships taken down or hyjacked?) can really play into different priorities or preference, and each start to a kill order gives multiple consequent follow-ups. Just another way to throw in some interesting complexities... while also not striking thin air 30 ft below the belly of the beast you're trying to punch.

Or you could even.

Have a power control mechanic on it. You over-damage the legs and instead of it getting knockback it could counter with a rockets or elements, if you damage it just enough it will get the knockback effect. Permanence and conventional order would make it a pre-scripted dance. And the legs gain repairs periodically.

You can jam it's cannon by applying heat to it. Overheat it and the mech gets pulse bombs AoE which are even worse than the cannons. Damage it just enough and the cannons potency gets severely hampered. And the cannons get repaired periodically.

Damage it's instrument panels and the mech loses mobillity, over damage it and the mech gains homing skills or flies in the air mostly invulnerable. And the instrument panels get periodically repaired.

The one area that damage if permanent has high defense and HP in so that if you try to take it down ignoring side mechanics, it is next to impossible or takes so much longer it is less efficient.

[TAS]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; add more variety to the content out side of just spam farming the same thing over and over. Truthfully you really only need to run a raid, dungeon, trial, FATE ( the list goes on) once. Having to spam the same piece of content over and over again gets really old really fast. And as of late it feels like with every patch, they keep bringing in new things versus developing and enhancing on what they already have.

I really feel like the "inclusive" approach they've been taking is starting to hurt the game a bit. Most of what we get in terms of content has been centered on being new player friendly and everybody can participate, and the DEVs seem to have forgotten that they have people who have been playing this game for 3-5 years now. Deep Dungeon for example: Great way to enroll new players, it's a new way to level up, and all the floors are never the same. Great! It would have been better if it was something that came out at ARR Launch, because, as a player that has a preferred job that he already has maxed; Going into new content and having to start at level one is a turn off. Why would I want to repeat that grind again, especially if I have no interest in leveling up another job?

I understand the need and desire to attract new players, and making them feel included. I, as an ongoing player, want to enjoy this game just as much as a new comer, but having to spam a weeks worth of new content for a period of three months, be it for gear, whatever, just isn't enough.

[Teraluna]

I'm waiting for the further PotD floors, as Yoshi P has stated the escalating difficulty will mean not everyone will be able to get to floor 200.

And I'm perfectly fine with that, even if I end up someway short of the final floor. If that's as far as I can go, whilst other players finish several levels higher, then good for them and I'd give them a well done.

Just hoping it's not too long before we get these.

[Kallera]

hm....I don't think it is afraid of a challenge, its just, I've seen what this game's idea of challenge looks like, and it is not the fun kind of challenge.

It is either running the easy content a large number of times until it is well past boring...
or dealing with teeth pulling mechanics with a party of 8, where if one person is out of step, well time to all line up in front of the boss to die, assuming it wasn't some time bomb dps race with OHKOs just for giggles...

After that fight, I'm at a loss at what I enjoy. I have to choose between too unforgiving or too repetitive. I know no one is above needing work on their own role, but when its not your fault, and you still lose consistently, that's when the challenge becomes something not worth doing instead.