What is good Battle Content?

[ShinMetsu]

So, when Eureka Pyros came out, people complainted "FATEs are boring."
With Pagos people said "Fighting monsters is boring."
Most people I know think Dungeons are boring.
And I think raids are boring, doing the same scripted dance every single time.


Hence I just wanna put the question out there.


What is good battle content?
How would you design Battle content to be interesting?

As well as,
How would you rate current Battle content?

FATEs
Hunts
Dungeons
Canals of Uznair (Timeworn map)
Primals
Raid (Normal)
Raid (Savage)
Ultimate
Alliance Raids
PotD/HoH
Eureka Anemos
Eureka Pagos
Eureka Pyros

[HyoMinPark]

Obviously, you’re going to get various answers, all reflecting each responder’s personal preferences.

But, here’s mine:
On a acale of 1 to 5
1 — Very Boring
2 — Boring
3 — Middle Ground, not terribly Boring but not terribly Exciting either
4 — Exciting
5 — Very Exciting

How would you rate current Battle content?

FATEs — 1
Hunts — 1
Dungeons — 3 (depends on the dungeon—some are fun, others are boring—so I will give a middle rating)
Canals of Uznair (Timeworn map) — 3 (only exciting when I’m with friends, tbh; I don’t find it fun with randoms. I haven’t been in the newest iteration of Timeworn Map instances, but I enjoyed the prior ones when I was with friends)
Primals — 4
Raid (Normal) — 4.5 (I really enjoy normal mode 8-mans)
Raid (Savage) — 5
Ultimate — 5
Alliance Raids — 4 (some I would individually rate with 5, but in general, 4)
PotD/HoH — 2.5
Eureka Anemos — 3 (this was fun with friends)
Eureka Pagos — 1
Eureka Pyros — N/A (no opinion because I haven’t been inside the content, though I hear it’s better than Pagos)

What is good battle content?
How would you design Battle content to be interesting?

I’m not an encounter designer, but I like encounters where I’m constantly active. I like encounters where I have to utilize my entire toolkit, which is why I rated things like Primals, Raids, Savage, and Ultimate higher than anything else. When I’m on BRD, I like having to make use of my utility, and while yes, you can do that in things like Dungeons, it tends to be overkill and can feel unrewarding at times. When I play AST, I like having to juggle both healing and DPSing—in dungeons, I feel more like a Green DPS than ever. I end up making it a game of “how few GCD heals can I actually get away with casting” instead to try and keep myself interested in the content.

I’m not asking for everything to have some extreme difficulty, but I would like for things like Dungeons to not be 100% faceroll the day they’re released. I honestly prefer leveling dungeons over “expert” dungeons because things hit harder and I have to actually focus more on healing and mitigation. I can’t just cushion with higher item levels.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I have more fun doing a Trial or Raid for the first time than I do learning the EX or Savage variant. I feel like what keeps those things exciting is the story context and how each Primal manages to get flashier with how it interacts with the arena.

Similarly, within proper context, I feel a number of things can be fun. Mobs are probably the least interesting thing in the game to kill due to the fact that their EXP yield is terrible compared to dungeons. That said, when I first got into the overworld and got to explore before Sastasha, I felt pretty badass being able to get to Level 12 and kill one of those giant turtles or goobbues.

FATEs can be pretty neat as well, provided you do something with them that's appealing. I went and killed all of the big FATE bosses like Ixion, but also the ones like Cancer. Those were kind of neat given how many players it took to work with in order to bring them down. I preferred things like Dataqi or Attack on Highbridge, though, where you see the overworld change a bit depending on your success or failings. That's what I'd like to see more of.

I feel like combat begins to become stale, though, when I need to continually repeat a fight for some prize or something. Repetition leads to me zoning out and when I'm zoned out, I'm probably not having fun.

[RareItems]

Player vs Player is never boring. If SE manages to combine Frontlines PVP (Even thou it's not the best PVP) with Eureka style instance (no queues, get in and get out whenever you want, one large map with up to 144 players) with no Ilvl sync, I think it will fill the gap of constant boredom xD.

[Tharnor]

Quests: generally are extremely boring and are very by the numbers in this game. You see lots of collect 3 of this kill 5 of that with little to no impact felt in the areas you go too. The lack of variation makes the repeatable quests a total slog.

PotD/HoH: Cool concept but felt like they read a pamphlet about what a rogue-like is about without understand or the willingness to make it a true rogue-like experience.

Dungeons: Dungeons are fun for the first few times you run them. After that its extremely by the numbers with little to no variation. I'll give them some free ideas how about random branching paths, sections where you have to split up, and/or enemies and bosses with random mechanics.

Hunts: Die to quickly and as I repeat myself by the numbers repetition after the first few times. Combine that with a lack of interesting things to do with the rewards and that leads to less people running them. An in game chat channel for hunts would be nice as well. Along with spawn protection for about 10minutes.

24man Raids: These can be a blast but being spoon fed easy content breeds bad players and we get things like Ozma which was at least one wipe per run till gear allowed people to brute force it. A couple of bad players can really ruin the experience.

Trials: No complaints they are fun for the most part.

8man Raids: Started out fun with coil. Became elitist only with alexander, and I can not comment on SB since I never touched the savage content this expansion. The biggest gripe I have is SE stepped away from the distinction of trials and the 8man raids. They felt like different encounter types in ARR. The line started to blur in HW and in SB they are pretty much one and the same and just give different loot. HW broke my desire to run savage after shitting all over my two main classes whm/pld.

Ultimate: Looks fun no comment.

Eureka: This is coming from someone that is mid 5th relic for pagos. Eff that place. Not for the concept or even that relics are tied behind it. Purely by not listening to the fan base and making it harder to do the content. While succeeding it making it feel so under used. You can NM grind or mob chain for lvls and light. Good mob chain spots are ultra limited and lead to fighting between groups. While NM's are a huge pain to spawn some times. Trying to mimic an old mob grinding game with a modern gameplay was just a bad idea on so many levels. General APM is way higher and leads to real hand strain. They wanted to mimic ff11 but failed when 11 actually did it better in most areas.

The biggest problem with all of the content this expansion can be boiled down to them following a strict formula for the core game and going all in on content players have repeated told the devs they do not want. Compounding the problem, they refuse to fix major class problems mid expansion.

[Sandpark]

What is good battle content?
How would you design Battle content to be interesting?

There are three personal skill types:

1. Cerebral- Knowledge, what to expect and how to react.
2. Reflex- The motor skills, physical ability to do.
3. Resources- The tools, equipment and stats needed to act appropriately.

Good combat has a degree of those things. The reason why combat gets stale is once you already have the knowledge, and a competent motor skill, all three get stronger the more you repeat something. Since combat in most instances here is static, what might feel impossible at first becomes easier, and then later becomes stale.

Dodge this, run here, stack that, space this, face away here, stand there. It seems complicated but each fight for the most part plays out the exact same way in different orders from another fight, but that singular fight has the same strategy whether you do it once or 1000 times.

Then you have people complaining about wanting something different and unique. And when that shiny new event, dungeon,raid, or trial comes out. It fills that desire momentarily but due to the static nature. It too will become stale and the desire will begin in an endless cycle that no developer can satiate within that rule of static.

[Iscah]

Similarly, within proper context, I feel a number of things can be fun. Mobs are probably the least interesting thing in the game to kill due to the fact that their EXP yield is terrible compared to dungeons. That said, when I first got into the overworld and got to explore before Sastasha, I felt pretty badass being able to get to Level 12 and kill one of those giant turtles or goobbues.

I agree with all of what you wrote, but I wanted to comment on this in particular, because it stuck out to me as well when I was leveling up.

I remember looking at those huge Lv12 enemies and being glad they weren't aggressive.

Or looking warily down the path to Fallgourd crawling with Lv25 banemites - or the other where you could stumble straight from Lv5 enemies into a Lv49 dullahan.

It was such a wonderful feeling to finally be strong enough to venture into those places, and so strange now to stop and look back on it and realise I can simply walk in there without fear.


I miss that about the expansions, where areas are much more closely tied to your own level when you visit them. There isn't the same long-term sense of a place being in view but out-of-reach for so long before you're finally ready to go in.

[ShinMetsu]

I find it very interesting how often people cry for "shake up the formula, give us something new and fresh".
But every piece of new battle content (content that wasn't present by 2.1 at least) has not been well received.

Hunts, PotD/HoH, Diadem, Eureka, Timeworn Maps.
Timeworn Maps and PotD/HoH being most well received and being entirely optional content.

It's such a contradiction in itself somehow, the same forumla that so many people complain about is at the same time the most popular content.

I'd like to see more responses though.

[Connor]

In my opinion good content is something that allows players actually apply to their skill strategically. I think giving players the opportunity to find out how to deal with mechanics themselves is much better than giant bright red aoe markers that tell you what to do.
Also content that actually involves roles working together instead of all turning into DPS. Healers having to cover healing, tanks doing whatever it is tanks do, DPS all being Bard. Having to actively consider your role and how you’re going to support the party and work as a cohesive team together.
Or I guess we could just keep going with the content design of ‘let’s get 8 players and make them DPS as hard as they can’ with the occasional aoe marker that only ever really serves as a potential DPS loss. ‘But since all they really do is DPS let’s make it extremely simplistic for every job. Except when it’s clunky’

[Duskane]

FATEs fine for a little extra exp 2/5 for normal fates 4/5 for the special ones like fox lady
Hunts enjoyable at launch but power creep ruins them later on 2/5
Dungeons stale and never very interesting unless they have unique glamor like swallow compass or Skall 2/5 for basic dungeons 4/5 for the ones with neat loot
Canals of Uznair (Timeworn map) 4/5 fun content with friends
Primals Really depends on each one
Raid (Normal) 3/5
Raid (Savage) 3/5
Ultimate have no say on this since i don't do them or ever will for ugly recolors (besides death bringer ultima but can do without)
Alliance Raids 3/5 this also depends on the duty itself some are very boring and same reason as the hunt power creep kinda ruins the older ones
PotD/HoH 3/5 cool concept still hoping for one thats man vs machine (tf2) good for EXP can be good for learning jobs at max level but for some its not
Eureka Anemos 2/5 nothing to it besides zerging fates
Eureka Pagos 2/5 light grind actually gave people something to do but took many nerfs to become easily doable
Eureka Pyros 4/5 best of both plus more but still has flaws