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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Aeilyi]

I am a masochistic weirdo so I want my opinion on what's fun and not, be taken with a grain of salt. Maintenance is happening and I'm bored, so I just wanna throw what I think out there anyway.
Out of 1 to 10, with 1 being least fun and 10 being most fun.

Open World
1 - FATEs - It's a nice alternative for leveling, but most of the time, it's just killing mobs so that's not very fun.
7 - Rare FATES - Rare FATES as in Ixion or Fox Lady. This is rated higher because probably of the rarity and nice rewards, like mounts or cute fox minions. It actually feels rewarding to finally get these things.
5 - Hunts - These are not very fun because they're giant sandbags, but the rewards makes them worthwhile.

Dungeons
3 - Dungeons - These are rated lower because most of the time, dungeons are really easy in mechanic. I can have YouTube on the other screen and still beat these easily. But I also rate them lower because there's not a lot of rewards except Verdant Partitions, minions, a mount, and glamour (Which most of them, imo, doesn't look good).
5 - Canals of Uznair (Timeworn map) - I would have rated them at 3, the same as dungeons, but the rewards from them makes it more interesting.

Trials
4 - Trials (Extreme) - It's fun the first 5 times (rated at 7) but after that, it becomes a snooze-fest for me.
7 - Shinryu EX - This fight is an exception. I wished I was here when it was first released but sadly, I didn't buy the game until December. I cleared this while vastly overgeared and it was still a challenge. It pipes my curiousity on what kind of a fight it was on release. I wasn't here for Heavensward but I can imagine some fight being equally interesting such as Zurvan ... but all of them feels boring now that we're over geared for them.
5 - Rathalos EX - This is not a primal or a dungeon so it gets its own special place. I would have rated this fight a 7 if things didn't one shot or nearly one shot you. The MHW Rathalos feels so much better, probably because there's more than 1 way to handle annoying mechanics/attacks. But in FF14, the only way we have to dodge is just run around in circles. ** But I also don't mind if SE wants to experiment with more 4-man trials but in FFXIV style.

Raids
5 - Raid (Normal) - They're fun when you go in blind on the first run but after that, it's boring and repetitive.
9 - Raid (Savage) - I want Final Omega to step on me. <33333 ... I hate Middy and Guardian though .. boring scenery and pugs ruined it for me. O11S Pantokrator 1 and 2 is probably the most fun mechanic I've ever experienced even though it shits on my dps as a Summoner (Lots of movement and I still need to work on optimizing). I love that it looks as if Omega is panicking and is just throwing all that he has at us.
? - Ultimate - No idea but looks fun, gonna give it another shot when I have time.

Alliance Raids
1 - Lv50 Alliance Raids - SE PLEASE STOP GIVING ME LABYRINTH OF THE ANCIENTS FOR ALLIANCE ROULLETTE!!! I've gotten it literally every day for the last 3 months and I am so tired of it. Every day I hoped to get Weeping City of Mhach or Rabanastre but nope. Another Labyrinth of the Ancients.
5 - Lv60 Alliance Raids - They're all pretty fun especially Weeping City of Mhach. I like that you can fall off the platform which can get pretty interesting with new players.
1 - Void Ark - This is an exception. It's pretty much like a dungeon but in 24-man form. Everything feels like a striking dummy.
6 - Lv70 Alliance Raids - It's pretty fun, watching all of the chaos. The second/fire boss in Ridorana drives me nuts though. I have to be ridiculously careful with how my Dreadwyrm Trances lines up before he teleports which is super annoying and he teleports way too much.

Deep Dungeons
1 - PotD (1-50) - I am dying from boredom.
4 - HoH (1-30) - I rate it higher, probably because our rotations are more fun at level 60+, plus it feels a tiny bit more challenging then PotD.
6 - PotD (50+) / HoH (30+) - There's a sense of danger and potential of wiping. Keeps me on my toes and make careful decisions on the fly.

Eureka
3 - Eureka Anemos - I sometimes joke if I have sleeping problems (which I chronically do), I'll just go to Eureka to fix it and it actually does. Practicing rotations on mobs over and over again is not fun.
1 - Eureka Pagos - Killing mobs over and over again is not fun.
? - Eureka Pyros - I heard that it's more fun than Pagos. I'll consider trying it but kinda meh about it. I dread having to go through Pagoes to try and catch up on level though.

TLDR; Overall, boring content can be fun if the rewards are good enough. My incentives would be mounts, gil, spiky hairstyles, and decent housing items like the Verdant Partition.
As for how to make combat content fun, I guess don't make the fight feel as if you're beating on a striking dummy that occasionally sneezes at you for 8-20 mins.

Since combat in most instances here is static, what might feel impossible at first becomes easier, and then later becomes stale.
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.

This is probably the case for me and why I find most of the battle content not very fun. It gets boring really fast doing the same scripted dance for the 50th time.

At the same time, throwing "randomness" into a fight can be a hit or miss. Lol. I still see people failing Lar/Starboard and Middy's flip/spins consistently. Clearing O7S was hell with pugs because of the "random" phases and missiles.

But I wonder if adding randomness in a fight would make it more fun as long as it is less punishing. Like the worse punishment that one can get for failing a mechanic would be a damage down debuff or getting turned into a rabbit. That way, only the person who failed the mechanic gets punished, instead of putting stress on the healer or the rest of the party.

[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.

[BillyKaplan]

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.

You're confusing correlation with causation. New content hasn't been well received because almost always, at least one key element of it falls horribly flat. Hunts are very popular (at least for a niche content) and they're almost always relevant. What's not well received about them is the disconnect between what they became (server-wide community content) vs. what the devs want them to be. It's situations where people work an hour to spawn Nunyunuwi in Southern Thanalan only for someone to be able to pull it once it pops before everyone who actually spawned it can make it there in time. That's what's not well received about hunts.
PotD/HoH are very fun but they're stale and uninventive. HoH tried to shake things up with the big floors but at the same time made them irrelevant because you pop a magicite and it's gone.
And there's already been enough talk about Eureka.

New content =\= guarantee for complaints and rejection. But it's enough to look at things like the glamour dresser to get a better feel for this thing. The devs try, I can't say they don't... they just don't get it right. And if we try to work around it like in Anemos, they'll design the next step so we can't do it like that anymore.

As for good battle content, I'm a filthy casual. I'm satisfied with most of what we have here but agree with the general gist - I enjoy more the high-end trials and raids. Alphascape is very enjoyable to me, esp. 11 and 12 which I often run as a healer. And I've been throwing myself at Suzaku ex lately, which is actually a delight. Forces me to use my kit smartly, and unlike most content gives me motivation to improve my rotation and playstyle, reevaluate my stats, etc. I personally don't need much more.