Quote Originally Posted by Deceptus View Post
See: Every EX primal in Stormblood. Extended add phase to to discourage speed running.
It is not just about discouraging Speedruns.
I know what they try to achive and to be honest... and here comes the sad Part, it is listed under cheap and lazy Design Tricks for Game Makers.

If you strech an encounter, it fakes Players into seeing it as more Epic than it acctually is.
They feel like they slayed a big and mighty Boss Monster...even if it is not.
Because it is easy to trick Humans into thinking they achived something big if it takes more time to do so.

This something Ubisoft overexaggerated in The Division a lot, by making Bosses literally Bulletsponges, who ate up to 1000-2000 Bullets.
The encounters were not really that Epic, they just took around 10 Minutes of pushing Bullets into a Bulletsponge. Or for Boderlands, when on the max difficulty a single Boss eats up to 1000 Bullets per Player. The fight itself is nearly the same as on just Medium or Hard. The Boss only eats more Bullets and suddenly the Players see the fight as super epic.

This is also often used when Devs adjust the difficulty of Games and the first thing they do is make the HP Bar of a Boss 300% larger.
In the end, the Bosses are not really harder...they have just more HP and do more Damage.
But as soon as the Player is able to dodge every Enemy move it just is a longer fight.

Hell, this is sadly even the Goal of the whole Bluemage Skillquest.
To strech it to make it look bigger and larger as it is by adding RNG into the whole thing, instead of making it a Puzzle Quest.

What we got: Skill XY - Leviathan Extreme (no go and do this fight 20-40 times because RNG)

What I wished for: Burried under the Seas, hidden by water dark as the night itself, a Spell will be hidden behind the Monsters Tail.
(don't jump on me for that...I just made that up in 5 seconds, so it is a bit simple and sounds pretty cheesy like a D&D DM needed to make up a Puzzle on the fly while drinking something for a few seconds. ^^)

I hope, you get what I mean by that way. It makes a Player look at the Text, then get the Skill from Leviathan and feel like they are solving a Puzzle. Like they are truly searching for those Skills.
Of course Players will use Charts to be done as fast as possible, but others will really enjoy reading this Hint and say "I guess they mean Leviathan. Lets try that out with my Grand Company Commando".
The Arena itself again is a nice way to make this Class fun, because it is a Puzzle Game...locked behing mindless RNG Farm.

My Point is: Don't strech Content just to make it longer. Especially things that are also made for Players with a Casual Schedule, like the Bluemage.
Just because farming Skills for 30 Hours is something for a Player who can spend 5-6 Hours a day on the Game, does not mean, that it is made for Players who can maybe spend 4-5 Hours a week on the Game.

I see this with a Friend of mine. He can only play around 2-3 evenings a week for maybe 1-2 Hours with us, because of his Children, his Wife and their Dog.
It would take him Months to finish Eureka or the Bluemage.
And Yoshida sold FF14 back then as a Game that also aims at those Players by being an after Work MMO-RPG, by giving Stone Bonuses for playing a Roulette once per day, instead of 6 times on a Tuesday.
But now we see them strech the Game for the sake of streching it.