Cinder drift critique: top heavy mechanics are the wrong way to go *minor spoliers*

[Dragonkat]

So finished the fight with some rather amusing reactions from people last night, including a "WTF THIS IS NORMAL?!?" winning. But the fight itself? Honestly I didn't enjoy it in the slightest compared to previous content.

Phase 1 isn't that bad, if anything it's a pretty standard boss battle with some creative aoes mixed in like the liquefy attack. By itself that part would have been alright for a new trial. But phase 2

Oh phase 2 . . .

SQ you really REALLY need to tell your fight designers that multi wipe mechanics with stupid short enrage timer windows on top like this are not fun. Forcing your players into perfect execution of mechanics instead of perfect execution of their job role and knowing your class (not that there is much to know after tanks and heals got dumbed down) is the wrong direction to go.

This got compounded when one of the tanks in our fight had never done the Ivalice chain and therefore had never seen the arrow mechanic. Not a good thing when that part can again easily result in a wipe if your tanks and healers don't know it.

We need more boss battles that are engaging and less fights that have players looking for videos to explain why they just wiped before or after a failure, i consider myself lucky to have a group that stuck it out through five.

And we need more fights that don't veer into spending more time assigning positions then actually battling the boss. My time in Titania EX comes to mind where we did just that. And the fight itself became trivial in the process. It wasn't about knowing my class, it was about knowing where to stand.

There is no skill in rote memorization of a wipe mechanic. Anyone who says "But it's harder" is missing the point because it's not. The only challenge is learning the mechanic. after which I honestly found the fight stupidly easy. Stand here, DPS, repeat, yawn. This is where cinder drift fails because you've made the fight repetitive and boring.

It's going to play out the exact same way every single time because of top heavy mechanics. Tanks must do X, healers must do Y, damage dealers must not derp after both. Failure of any of the above inside some silly short enrage timer window will result in wipe and do it again. And it doesn't matter after that what class, what role, what level of knowing your job comes into the fight if you have "assignments" instead of "gameplay"

Compare this to some of the SB content like the four lords battles (byakko being my fav) or the entire Ivalice arc with some hard as heck bosses, but none of which that had to rely on stupid wipe mechanics to the degree ruby does. Or Copied in ShB. I'll never get tired of taking on the giant mecha or seeing which room I end up in to play death dodge with ring lasers and floor traps. But after doing cinder once I have zero desire to go back to it past helping friends. And even less of a desire to go anywhere near the EX version, least not without looking at a video first [/sarcasm]

[Theodric]

The content has only been out for a little over a day. It's also side content, not mandatory for advancing the MSQ's.

I'm pleased that we're getting more fights that shake things up a bit more than usual.

[monk-dps]

Sounds like the fight is doing it's job and is actually might bring some hurt. I welcome this. I rather a fight make you respect it instead of the normal slap slap slap they normally are.

[Noitems]

Honestly I've done the fight about 4 times now with friends and the only difficult part I found was the circle aoe in pinwheel rotation.

This fight is very simple and at worse in rous will be one wipe and people will get over it.

I've gotten to around 65% on EX blind and EX is also manageable now that I've watched vids on how to handle said pinwheel aoe.

Second phase is also extremely easy, and if you're failing to meet it your party is either recovering from deaths or you just have people tanking the adds badly.

All in all normal is fine and should be what it is. Though I will state the fight is longer then I expected for an trial.

God forbid we actually have a challenging set of trials/raids instead of the laughable Hades EX that was said to be "Hard as Shinryu EX"

[Seraphor]

So what do you suggest?
Do away with AoE attacks entirely and just base the entire fight around an enrage timer, forcing you to perfect your job rotation and nothing else?

Skill is in executing your rotation at the same time as managing fight mechanics. That's why we have both mechanics and an enrage, which is perfectly comfortable in normal mode.

All mechanics were new at some point. So what if he hadn't played the Ivalice Raids? When you play the Ivalice Raids, you're encountering that mechanic for the first time anyway.

I played Ruby normal four times yesterday, each time clearing it with different friends for their first time, and with 4-6 other newbies each time too. Each time, the liquifaction and comets caused us a wipe, and each time we got it the second try. So what's the problem?
Can you really not bear to wipe even once?

[Nayout]

What is the problem that we have a variety of combats? If all the Dungeon Crawlers were like Etrian Odyssey where the preparation is rewarded more than the combat itself would bore me a lot. I want variety I want to have to prepare 30 minutes before a fight and I also want to think about strategies in the combat itself like the Experience games.

Yesterday I had problems with this Trial because two Dancers had no idea of ​​doing DPS, not of doing the rotation, but that they had no idea of ​​ANYTHING they never used the dances in all the combat and when I arrived at the final dps check the boss still had the half life. We did? We kick them and complete them are relatively easy. I am happy to have bosses like these where people who do not have a minimum of knowledge will not be able to complete, it reminds me of my first time in Heavensward with The Aery where the Healer and the Tank kick the Ninja because I had absolutely no idea of Nothing and we couldn't pass the DPS check of the adds.

[monk-dps]

I think they should double down on making people respect mechs. I rather have that then just doing your rotation over and over again. I mean to be fair, both designs lead to the fights getting easier after you clear it anyway, least with the mechs having harsh wiping mechs that make you respect them there's a chance of it maybe lasting longer then just a dps check with nothing else in it.

Tho I also agree with we need more punishing mechs that can cause instant wipes not less.

[Gula]

Can you really not bear to wipe even once?

A lot of people can't and it's really, really sad.

My party wiped 4 times.

Liquification, Comets, some bad play, Enrage. But we got it in the end. And I was glad. I didn't like one players wannabe dudebro attitude but I liked how others kept up a positive spirit and we pulled through. In fact it is why I enjoy doing content day 1 and blind. Overcoming a trial is what makes them rewarding per the experience. Not like tank and spank, stand in a corner while the boss does something slow and flashy, repeat and fall asleep.

[Leloa]

Just be good at games and you have no problem~

[HyoMinPark]

I haven’t had a chance to do normal or EX for Ruby Weapon, but what exactly is the problem with level 80 content (i.e., endgame content) requiring some semblance of competency from those attempting it? I think the endgame needs more challenging content that aren’t Extremes or Savage—there’s a huge gap between them and the other endgame content (alliance raids, normal mode raids, “expert” dungeons), and it could stand to be bridged a little bit.

I’d rather have more punishing mechanics as opposed to free-falling for 2 minutes dodging balls that don’t even kill you.