Would you improve if the content required it?

[vp_cmc]

Challenging fights with true randomness, where you can never have a perfectly straightforward and easily memorizable cool down rotation, where not every single gcd can be mapped out to perfection from start to finish? Yes, yes.YES.

I've tried to imaging how BLM can play in such type of content and failed - it's some kind of nightmare for him, this job really depends on that fight knowledge in advance.

So, I think it won't happen, not up to this degree.

[JunseiKei]

The biggest issue with Steps was that it was a very long fight and even if things went badly and you knew there was NO WAY you were going to pull out a victory, you still had to wait for the dragon to waddle ALL THE WAY down to the other end and end the fight.

The fight isn't any longer than other fights, really, even before its nerf. The issue was a lot of people just weren't aware of its kind of mechanics; first time I set foot in there with hubby, we were both giddy with delight on how much the fight was similar to Monster Hunter Freedom Unite's Lao-Shang Lung. For this reason, we told the others what to based solely on hunches; things like don't be under the feet, drag mobs to under Vishap's chin and cannon's can blow them up; bind and use the "dragonater" on Vishap (I still don't know what FFXIV has named that thing >_>).

Sometimes I just think that most people that have issues falling prey to mechanics simply haven't been exposed to other elements from other games. I was actually surprised it took Stone Vigil Hardmode to see our first Monster Hunter- like fights surface, again in Steps of Faith and again in Bismarck. You know, considering how insanely popular Monster Hunter is in Japan and the fact there were some cross over event items from Square Enix in Capcom's Monster Hunter going on at that time.

Challenging fights with true randomness

Hardly exists in any game due to the ridiculous amount of resources and time it takes to actually put in true random. Though few will ever believe this statement.

[Pells]

I think I see your point, I agree it's the same for the most part. Learning to adapt requires memorization. I think it's really interesting how fights can be really scripted and paced the same every single time yet some are more engaging while others are snooze fests. I thought it was maybe the need to react quicker when theres 3+ mechanics going on but maybe its more.

Take the Echidna fight in Void Ark. Tanks who have memorized the fight will go to the right places when she splits into three. Tanks who haven't tend to end up badly placed. Tanks who can adapt will move when paired with tanks who mess this up; tanks who have only memorized just sit there yelling because "that's how it's always done".

Adaptation is for the unexpected, which helps greatly when matched with random people or mechanics. Memorization would help adaptation, since you can be proactive rather than reactive, but isn't necessary. Ideally, you'd be capable of both simultaneously.

[Zojha]

Take the Echidna fight in Void Ark. Tanks who have memorized the fight will go to the right places when she splits into three. Tanks who haven't tend to end up badly placed. Tanks who can adapt will move when paired with tanks who mess this up; tanks who have only memorized just sit there yelling because "that's how it's always done".

I'd beg to be more precise - In order to be able to adapt to the bad positioning, you first need to have memorized the spread mechanic. You need to access the stored knowledge in your brain that the adds are supposed to be split as far away as possible. That's memorization - if you don't know or forgot about that, you might just tank the adds naively where they stand, together in the middle, because why not?

What you are alluding to here is memorizing the wrong thing. They have memorized the position, not the working of the mechanic, so they can naturally only access the knowledge of the position - they do not have the knowledge of the mechanic stored. Error 404, memory not found. And thus, they cannot respond properly until someone gives them the knowledge with a quick:"Spread the adds as much as possible for the debuff to vanish!" They'll put that knowledge into their short-term memory and recall it from there in the next try.

That said, adapting without memorization of the solution to a given problem is going to rely purely on luck. You might do the right thing, you might do the wrong thing. If you ever see someone run away from you with a tether that's meant to make you stack together, chances are he was trying to adapt by recalling the knowledge of the burning chain tether in the Vault and applying it. That's the wrong solution for that tether however and they will need to memorize that fact and the proper solution to boot.

That's why the homogenization of indicators is so immensely helpful. You no longer need to memorize a dozen different indicators for "stack together", you only need to memorize one and whenever you see it, you can solve it with the same behaviour. This allows you to potentially solve a new fight on the first try, whereas if every fight used its own indicators, you'd need to memorize which indicator means what mechanic in which fight.
If you're a mean developer, you can actually play with that and make a fight in which the generic harmful AoE indicator means:"Stack together here". By breaking the consistency, people will be unable to adapt, as the solution they have memorized for these AoE indicators is faulty in this particular case - until they realize the exception and memorize that fact.

[NefarioCall]

Yes

Fact is i don't ever meld Materia, or bother working on obtaining and equipping gear beyond Lv230.
I put it on only if i happen upon it.
Because i keep thinking, what's the point? This better stuff is just going to be obsolete in a months time.
So long as the progression in this game remains vertical, i will likely never aim to be the best,
But i would absolutely go all out if it were worth anything.

[S-r-ex]

Yes. I'm finally doing savage and I'm having a blast. Currently progressing on A11S, almost managed to pass the Lapis Lazuli phase. We don't have much time each week, but we're still determined to make it. Even just getting past Faust Z initially required everyone in my static to pull their punches. We sure have messed up and wiped a lot, but the sense of accomplishment when you down a savage is going to be hard to beat in this game.

[VictorTheed]

No, I wanna relax and enjoy the game, real life is difficult and challenging enough so I'd rather my break time from real life be enjoyable, besides if I wanna do difficult content ill do HW extreme primals or Alexander savage.

[TaleraRistain]

Yes, if I think the content is worth improving for and if the improvement is my own choice. I don't touch Savage in this game. I did hardcore raiding in MMOs in the past and it's just not for me any longer. So if the basic content I stick to was made harder to do, then I would need to evaluate if it was still worth it or not. If not, then I would just ignore it like I do Savage. And if there was enough that was ignored, I would just find another game to spend my time on.

[JunseiKei]

That said, adapting without memorization of the solution to a given problem is going to rely purely on luck. You might do the right thing, you might do the wrong thing. If you ever see someone run away from you with a tether that's meant to make you stack together, chances are he was trying to adapt by recalling the knowledge of the burning chain tether in the Vault and applying it. That's the wrong solution for that tether however and they will need to memorize that fact and the proper solution to boot.

That would fall under memorized visual queue, not the mechanic. Rolling Thunder, Burning Chain, Rafflesia's tether (that I have long forgotten the name to) - they all have a debuff on your status bar telling you that you will take damage. Though how and why may differ between fights (damage with each action, including auto and broken by being grounded; damage tick with time and broken with distance from each other; etc.). Unlike Imdugud's tether, which was a soak that had no indication other than, oh look, you visually have a tether (if memory serves me; it's been a while since I stepped into T10, even with Tails) was still different in that sense than the aforementioned tethers. Even in T13 with Flare Star; you got a tether, visually only again, that would come to you and do damage to you, eventually.

So while many mechanics might still look the same or incredibly similar, people don't actively look at things that tend to set them apart and lump them all as the same because it's a line attached to their character on a screen.

[Nora_of_Mira]

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Great, thoughtful posts. Thanks for the input and your perspectives. +1