Random Elements in Fights

[DrWho2010]

welll Rath was a special case because they were trying to emulate Monster Hunter as per the crossover theme.

I find it incredulous that people still bring this up. how have you not known by now the devs of XIV want balance and conformity in their encounter design? This is not something that just gets changed on a whim.
there is not enough call for a shake up of things. unless the entirety of the playerbase is upset with how things have been going for the past 6 years, nothing is changing anytime soon.

[Canadane]

I would be fine with some more Rathalos like anomalies but I wouldn't count on a full scale change.

[Driavna]

I think Memoria Misera is a good balance, there is enough randomness that forced me to pay attention instead of going full auto-pilot.

[ItMe]

I could see something like this working for more extreme content, and kinda hope they embrace that a little. At least, for the fights like Memoria Misera where it's not built to give you a preview of what it'll be like in Savage.
But as for the higher difficulties I don't see it happening. The devs like making very coreographed fights where people can plan strats, and you lose that if the fight is mainly about reacting to things as they come up.

[PyurBlue]

This is something I keep wanting more and more. While the scripted nature of FF14 is handled fairly well by the devs, I don't think it does anything for content longevity. It also creates a barrier of entry for more difficult content which isn't a problem in itself but I'd like more challenging duties that I can just jump into without memorizing them beforehand. Changing the game to move entirely away from scripted fights probably won't happen, but SE could introduce content specifically designed to be unpredictable. I think it could work for dungeons and raids alike. In order to help fit the development of this content into their resources they might try to develop it over a period of time, adding some more variation patch by patch. It would also help if the content was design from the beginning to be scalable so that increasing the difficulty to match the next level cap is just a matter of turning up some numbers. Though even if SE did decide to do this, I don't see it happening any time soon. They have recently reorganized the way that they're releasing content already with the removal of dungeons and deep dungeons and the addition of stuff like Unreal trials.

[Goji1639]

Randomness is obviously more difficult to balance; you have to make sure that no variation of attacks and mechanics can make the fight unwinnable.

It's probably not worth the effort.

[DrWho2010]

MM EX isn't really a "random" fight either. it has 3 things to watch out for, all of which are scripted in the start, random order in the back half. hardly a good example to use of true randomness.

[AdamFyi]

Considering how many people really don’t like E8S’s semi-random Light Rampant mechanic, I doubt an encounter that relies purely on random mechanics would be very fun — especially for melee DPS. In the case of Hades Ex, during the first phase’s falling circles mechanic, a lot of groups just mitigate through it because it’s easier than trying to dodge them.

Regardless, I think the more random mechanics really only belong in Extremes and up. The higher the degree of randomness of the mechanic, the harder it is to execute. I can’t imagine having to coordinate a random PF/RF party to do Limit Cut+Hawk Blasters in an Extreme fight, and we’ve already seen what Soar did to the Party Finder lol.