Why bother?

[AdrenKael]

So as I stated in my other posts I recently came back to the game after a long hiatus. After two months of leveling another toon (healer/DPS/Tank pretty much in that order) I've noticed a pattern emerging. No one bothers with mechanics so I don't understand why developers even bother with mechanics anymore since no one bothers to learn them.

I understand that in early dungeons you can easily DPS down a boss without having to deal with mechanics (think sastasha) but isn't this just teaching new players just to ignore ALL mechanics? 90% of the duty finder groups I've been in the dps stand in aoes, pull mobs, and ignore ANY mechanics at all and they expect you to heal them through it, they don't bother killing the adds in things like qarn HM (the cactaur boss specifically) which wipes us over and over again. So why not just dumb the dungeons down to ignore position for dps, press 1, 2, 3 and run around like a chicken without a head, put heal totems up so they can heal themselves and make all bosses do 1 dmg with every attack? This seems to be the way the players want it.

Now, granted I've not completed Heavensward again so I haven't started on Stormblood dungeons (almost but not yet, up to the goober library atm.) but the pattern I see is the developers don't care to make the mechanics interesting because the majority of their player base is DPS and from what I've seen in the duty finder is they wanna press 1, 2, 3 and stand in stuff and blame everyone else when it fails. Take a look at RDM The dps is crazy high and they can easily yank aggro away from an inexperienced tank in early dungeons. Why? Think pandering to the masses. I don't blame the players I blame the developers for making mechanics skippable and teaching players bad habits.

Am I way off base in this?

[Rongway]

You're just viewing mechanics through the lens of sync and overgearing.

Of course they need to bother. Each piece of content has a time when it is current and relevant and not cheesable. It's not the developers' fault when people miss out on experiencing these pieces of content when they first get added.

[AdrenKael]

You're just viewing mechanics through the lens of sync and overgearing.

Of course they need to bother. Each piece of content has a time when it is current and relevant and not cheesable.

This is true but doesn't the main point stand though? That it teaches new players not to bother and wouldn't they be better off by learning both how and more importantly WHY to work the mechanics early on?

[Rongway]

Regardless, they will get to the point where they meet mechanics that punish failure and realize they need to mechanics (or get kicked for not mechanicsing), or they'll quit the game and it's not a problem anymore.

The alternative is to buff all the old content, which will slow down runs, which will drive veterans away from lower content, which will slow down runs even more, which will leave new players frustrated and with nobody to teach them.

[AdrenKael]

I don't think it's a "buff old content" issue. I think its a "make mechanics interesting and fun so players WANT to work it" issue. But I can see your point. It's more difficult to fix something then it is to start with the proper mindset at the beginning.

[Dualgunner]

What's an example of a mechanic players would "want to" work at?

The game's culture all the way to Ultimate is "follow mechanics at the razor's edge of not doing them to maintain DPS uptime" and, again, even in Ultimate players get rewarded for high group damage through phase skipping and outright ignoring some final fight mechanics.

And Ultimate has some of the most fun mechanics in the game, I personally love how precise they can be and how creatively players can engage with them. Thermal High distribution, nail kill order, group movement to avoid landslides, group movement to avoid and work through Ultimate Predation, Annihilation, and Suppression.

[Pepsi_Plunge]

Well, it depends on the AOE/mechanic. As a SAM, if my gear is good enough and I know I can take it and heal myself back up with Mercyful Eyes/Bloodbath/Second Wind, I sometimes prefere the sweet, sweet DPS over dodging the mechanics. Of course you need to know what you can take and when you can take it.

The same is true for the tank: If your gear is good enough and you know the dungeon well, you can probably pull wall to wall. But if you are new and try to imitate this, you'll probably just die.

[Frizze]

I know this is partly a lack of creativity on my part, but i struggle to think of any dungeon-appropriate fight mechanics that i would find "interesting and fun" the 20th time i did them(let alone the 100th). The issue is that dungeons need to be designed so you can run them endlessly with a fully interchangeable party. Sleeping the guard dogs to put the enemy in a less alert state would be an interesting mech. It would also suck for every group that didnt have a BLM/WHM to cast the spell. Enemies that tried to run away and alert/spawn more friends to help would be interesting. Not every group composition can bind and/or assure the mob dies fast enough. In either case, after 5-10 runs it would just be another pattern to follow and not all that fun or engaging. Raids/trials give the devs a little more flexibility in fight design, and indeed those are where the more interesting mechs have shown up recently(and a few of the recent solo duties as well).

[AdrenKael]

One of the most interesting mechanics I've ever seen in an online game is changing bosses. Randomly changing boss encounters, rare boss/mini encounters with rare loot. It keeps things fresh. One of my biggest pet peeves as a healer is someone ignoring mechanics/AOEs in raids just to squeeze out an extra 1% dps. As a healer if Im having to heal DPS standing in aoes just so they can squeeze out that extra 1% I'm not able to dps half as much and I'm pretty sure 50% of my DPS is greater then their net gain of 1%. And of course a dead DPS is no DPS. Yet if I don't heal them they talk trash. Sure it's rare you get those types of DPS but that's my point the game teaches them to ignore it because the content is old and everyone wants to burn through it asap.

[Dualgunner]

There are two kinds of ignoring mechanics. There's the idiotic kind, where the ignoring of mechanics does not benefit even the DD's DPS, and then...

There is planned ignoring of mechanics. One example that comes to mind is Head-On in Sigmascape V1.0(Savage): the point of the mechanic is to disengage from the boss and run to the back of the arena to survive the incoming damage of Doom Train colliding with the arena. Through coordinated mitigation and planning, melee DD could stand up near the front of the arena, survive the Head-On, maintain uptime and get healed up in the immediate aftermath. It's ignoring a mechanic's intended interaction with a party entirely, but it gets DD that additional damage and sacrifices almost no damage from a healer.

You ask "Why bother with mechanics?" It's because the mechanics create a dance for the players to move along with. It also creates gambits of risk versus reward in the fight. Do we have the Paladin take Omega's tether in Alphascape V3.0(Savage) and run to the corner to Hallowed during Pantokrator 2? It's the safer option for sure. But we can also have the bard take it, and circle the outside of the arena, allowing the PLD to maintain uptime--it's riskier, but it's rewarding too.

This constant game of risk vs reward is what makes the game fun. But like everywhere in life, there are people who take idiotic risks for no reward.

As a healer if Im having to heal DPS standing in aoes just so they can squeeze out that extra 1% I'm not able to dps half as much and I'm pretty sure 50% of my DPS is greater then their net gain of 1%.

You shouldn't be losing 50% of your DPS to heal a DD who got hit by an AOE. Off-Global healing is something all three healers have that is more than enough for non-raid tier content.