Random Elements in Fights

[Dragonexx]

So after lurking around on this site for a while as well as making note of the games design, it seems a lot of it (class design, meta strategies, optimization, general gameplay) revolves around how heavily scripted fights are. Which makes me wonder, how would these things change if more random elements were introduced, primarily in regards to enemy mechanics?

[RagingStallion]

Every time you enter a roulette you get a random dungeon is that not random enough for you?

[DrWho2010]

So after lurking around on this site for a while as well as making note of the games design, it seems a lot of it (class design, meta strategies, optimization, general gameplay) revolves around how heavily scripted fights are. Which makes me wonder, how would these things change if more random elements were introduced, primarily in regards to enemy mechanics?

Stone Vigil hard mode's final boss is about the only one that has truly "random" mechanics and that is limited to a few moves, all which have signature tells. there would have to be a massive shift in dev philosophy for them to move away from current design parameters.

[Cyreil]

Stone Vigil hard mode's final boss is about the only one that has truly "random" mechanics and that is limited to a few moves, all which have signature tells. there would have to be a massive shift in dev philosophy for them to move away from current design parameters.

Rathalos embraced it.

I think more fights like Rathalos would be interesting in terms of fight randomness, just not in every single fight from here on out.

[Doozer]

Rathalos embraced it.

I think more fights like Rathalos would be interesting in terms of fight randomness, just not in every single fight from here on out.

I was just thinking of Rathalos when I read this thread. I loved that fight so much (probably because it was easier having played Monster Hunter) and having it be all about actually reacting to each attack instead of just "okay it's doing the tankbuster, then it's the room-wide AoE, then it'll jump to the center and drop AoEs..." it gets so boring when everything is so predictable. That alone is why I don't even bother with Savage and higher, it's just a memory game. I like to adapt to what happens instead of memorizing everything.

[SpeckledBurd]

Rathalos embraced it.

I think more fights like Rathalos would be interesting in terms of fight randomness, just not in every single fight from here on out.

Rathalos also doesn't have much in the way of actual mechanics beyond "Dodge the AOE based on the tell" and "stack up to soak fireball".

[Doozer]

Rathalos also doesn't have much in the way of actual mechanics beyond "Dodge the AOE based on the tell" and "stack up to soak fireball".

I mean, can't that describe like 90% of other fights anyway? Dodge AoEs and stack for stuff sometimes?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I mean, can't that describe like 90% of other fights anyway? Dodge AoEs and stack for stuff sometimes?

Yeah but rathalos is simple to the extreme. Sit on side the entire fight

[KageTokage]

The problem with adding randomness to an encounter is that too much of it can start to stray into artificial difficulty territory if certain combinations/timings of mechanics end up being much rougher to deal with.

Having played WoW in its earlier days, some of its mechanics could vary between being either trivial or hellish depending when/where they decide to occur and/or who they target. They eventually learned their lesson and largely stopped having unpleasant scenarios such as both healers or tanks being temporarily out of commission or otherwise placed into a situation that limits or prevents them from executing their role

[frostmagemari]

The problem with adding randomness to an encounter is that too much of it can start to stray into artificial difficulty territory if certain combinations/timings of mechanics end up being much rougher to deal with.
Having played WoW in its earlier days, some of its mechanics could vary between being either trivial or hellish depending when/where they decide to occur and/or who they target. They eventually learned their lesson and largely stopped having unpleasant scenarios such as both healers or tanks being temporarily out of commission or otherwise placed into a situation that limits or prevents them from executing their role

At the same time though, there is a middle ground between completely random events and perfectly scripted events. You mentioned WoW, and they have come up with a good system of how this is done. The bosses will not use their abilities in a perfect order, but rather they have a cooldown for each ability and there is a window after the ability is usable that they will use said ability; in addition to not allowing for shotgun uses of different abilities. This sometimes allows for one ability to happen before or after another, depending on how the windows fall. You can never have a truly randomized encounter without making it very basic, but you are not able to plot out the fight from start to finish before you start the encounter either.

It'd be easy enough for XIV to start to transition to something like that, they just have to be willing to try it instead of staying with the formula they have that ends up making a lot of the game feel the same.