Anybody else got tired of scripted fights?

[Cilia]

The scripted fights do get very boring; the over reliance on step by step predictability makes fights a dance, so winning them becomes more or less a matter of memorizing all the boss' attack patterns, where to stand and when.

It's fun to figure them out, but as a casual I don't often bother with EX fights and with only one dungeon per patch these days it gets very dull. Even the big raid fights eventually become predictable and easy; I challenge myself to clear them without getting a Vuln Up debuff and once I manage that it's impressively boring.

I recently jumped back onto WoW in preparation for the next expack; while the world isn't as pretty and the most current expack's story was... lacking to say the least, the boss fights are much more hectic. Even if you know everything the boss can do it still takes a considerable amount of attention to stay alive and win because there's an element of randomness to a lot of it, fights are generally much faster, and the bosses don't telegraph their attacks nearly as much. (The main problem with the game at present is a labyrinthine system of temporary powers that come and go with expacks, intended major pieces of content that fell flat on their face like the Diadem and Eureka, and lots of required daily / weekly content you need to keep up with. Mobile gaming systems are not enjoyable outside of their home environment!)

[Raikai]

The scripted fights do get very boring; the over reliance on step by step predictability makes fights a dance, so winning them becomes more or less a matter of memorizing all the boss' attack patterns, where to stand and when.

It's fun to figure them out, but as a casual I don't often bother with EX fights and with only one dungeon per patch these days it gets very dull. Even the big raid fights eventually become predictable and easy; I challenge myself to clear them without getting a Vuln Up debuff and once I manage that it's impressively boring.

I recently jumped back onto WoW in preparation for the next expack; while the world isn't as pretty and the most current expack's story was... lacking to say the least, the boss fights are much more hectic. Even if you know everything the boss can do it still takes a considerable amount of attention to stay alive and win because there's an element of randomness to a lot of it, fights are generally much faster, and the bosses don't telegraph their attacks nearly as much. (The main problem with the game at present is a labyrinthine system of temporary powers that come and go with expacks, intended major pieces of content that fell flat on their face like the Diadem and Eureka, and lots of required daily / weekly content you need to keep up with. Mobile gaming systems are not enjoyable outside of their home environment!)

Element of randomness in WoW fights? I don't see it, at all... The fights are scripted, that's why they have DBM over there that shows you the timer of all of boss actions. The thing that can add a lot of variables to the fights are not the randomness, but the fact that most fights can be done in different ways, and DPS there have a lot more responsibility than in XIV, which is basically just predict the telegraphs and react to AoE marks accordingly. Basically very linear fights. WoW's bosses also never follow a specific rule, so it's usually harder to be intuitive on what to do, and that I would also think it's an element that make their fights feel less "scripted".

But still yeah, WoW has that over XIV - those elements tend to make the fights more interesting. The downside is that they are much harder to balance, and often a content patch goes through a lot of hotfixes and adjustments.

[Absurdity]

Element of randomness in WoW fights? I don't see it, at all... The fights are scripted, that's why they have DBM over there that shows you the timer of all of boss actions. The thing that can add a lot of variables to the fights are not the randomness, but the fact that most fights can be done in different ways, and DPS there have a lot more responsibility than in XIV, which is basically just predict the telegraphs and react to AoE marks accordingly. Basically very linear fights. WoW's bosses also never follow a specific rule, so it's usually harder to be intuitive on what to do, and that I would also think it's an element that make their fights feel less "scripted".

But still yeah, WoW has that over XIV - those elements tend to make the fights more interesting. The downside is that they are much harder to balance, and often a content patch goes through a lot of hotfixes and adjustments.

I think that's exactly it. DBM often only tells you while or after the boss has already started to do a mechanic because on a lot of bosses there is no "sequence" of mechanics, there is a timer on when mechanics could or could not happen, or a completely different mechanic who's timer is ready happens instead.


I think what most people mean with scripted fights in XIV are the fights where you can determine exactly at which minute/second into the pull the boss is gonna do xy mechanic and it will always do this mechanic at the exact same time.

Server ticks are frustrating.

Other things are animation times, like how in WoW you can press an interrupt ability or tank cd at literally 99% of the cast bar and it will work, but in FF you might use it at 80% and take the ability to the face. We all know the "but I pressed Benediction!" memes. Clipping is a big one, you don't really clip oGcds in WoW. There's also the way aoe heals and shields apply to party members 1 by 1, so 6 people might receive the heal and the last 2 die to the raidwide before it gets to them. And then the way Enix only likes to play the attack animation after the damage hit has been registered, so you've ran halfway across the room, appear to have dodged the blast and fall over dead.

I like FF14 but the combat is terribly clunky. Part of optimizing and high end play basically comes down to understanding how the system doesn't work and adjusting to it.

This is pretty much what makes XIV's pvp so utterly unplayable for me, there is no split second interrupt or split second healing to save a teammate, it simply doesn't work.


But their pvp job design would make you think so. Stuns, silences and snares that last maybe 2-3 seconds, very little CC in general and often very high damage spikes in relation to hp, basically exactly the place where you would need to be able to make split second decisions. What you end up with is a pvp design that is actively fighting with the game's combat system.

[linayar]

I think what most people mean with scripted fights in XIV are the fights where you can determine exactly at which minute/second into the pull the boss is gonna do xy mechanic and it will always do this mechanic at the exact same time.

I think that's my favorite part about the fight with bosses when I'm tanking: when certain parts of the fight (depending on group performance) seem to match (from my perspective anyway) where I am on my chosen rotation, it feels really good to me.

[Hatfright]

Video Games in general is about learning patterns.

I don't doubt that, but Absurdity here gives a good point about it:

I think what most people mean with scripted fights in XIV are the fights where you can determine exactly at which minute/second into the pull the boss is gonna do xy mechanic and it will always do this mechanic at the exact same time.

And this is exactly my issue with it. This and almost every mechanic being about positioning. There is position mechanics that I like, Tsuky moon stacks are my favorite, but for the most part it's "don't stay here, you either die yourself or/and drag your whole party with you". And there's no way around it at all, you just have to dance with all those aoes. But how much more fun it would've been if there was a way to stop that aoe dance and to replace it with something else, like healcheck or something, idk. I wish we got more players responsibilities beyond just moving ourselfs from place to place. I wish we could deny bosses their abilities not by just burning their hp down.

[linayar]

But how much more fun it would've been if there was a way to stop that aoe dance and to replace it with something else, like healcheck or something, idk. I wish we got more players responsibilities beyond just moving ourselfs from place to place.

As a non-healer, a heal check is a non-mechanic for me. That's not more player responsibility, just shifting of responsibility.

I wish we could deny bosses their abilities not by just burning their hp down.

We already do, by doing mechanics: stacking, spreading, dodging, mitigating, healing, etc.

[Hatfright]

As a non-healer, a heal check is a non-mechanic for me. That's not more player responsibility, just shifting of responsibility.

We already do, by doing mechanics: stacking, spreading, dodging, mitigating, healing, etc.

That's why there's "idk" as I coudn't think of more examples. I shoud've been more presice in that, I guess.
You know what's my favorite normal raid so far?
A9, the one where you need to ressurect the mobs and kill em in different spot so they melt and boss can't use their parts for himself. I love OT it, it's way more fun than running around being blue dps. It also pushes a bigger pressure on healers if people don't stand behind cover on raidwide, tho I think if you messed up, you should be the one getting punished, not your healers. And it requares for dps not midlessly beat one target and one target only, you need to pay attention to what you kill and where.
Granted, I never done this raid in HW, as I started playing mid-SB, and don't know how hard it was at the release, but given how even now people wipe there due to their need to not switch targets or hold on to dps a little bit, so tank can position Faust and tanks properly... Something like this should appear more often. Dps can drop scraps whenever they want, it doesn't need to be at the exact predetermined spot, it just needs to provide cover. MT have to dcd enough, cuz boss still punches pretty hard. OT have their own minigame with adds. And heals have to be on point, you can't really go yolo here and push all resposibility to co-healer. I'd imagine people wiped less in here if they were prepared by something similar earlier in the game in one form or another.

[linayar]

That's why there's "idk" as I coudn't think of more examples. I shoud've been more presice in that, I guess.
You know what's my favorite normal raid so far?
A9, the one where you need to ressurect the mobs and kill em in different spot so they melt and boss can't use their parts for himself. I love OT it, it's way more fun than running around being blue dps. It also pushes a bigger pressure on healers if people don't stand behind cover on raidwide, tho I think if you messed up, you should be the one getting punished, not your healers. And it requares for dps not midlessly beat one target and one target only, you need to pay attention to what you kill and where.
Granted, I never done this raid in HW, as I started playing mid-SB, and don't know how hard it was at the release, but given how even now people wipe there due to their need to not switch targets or hold on to dps a little bit, so tank can position Faust and tanks properly... Something like this should appear more often. Dps can drop scraps whenever they want, it doesn't need to be at the exact predetermined spot, it just needs to provide cover. MT have to dcd enough, cuz boss still punches pretty hard. OT have their own minigame with adds. And heals have to be on point, you can't really go yolo here and push all resposibility to co-healer. I'd imagine people wiped less in here if they were prepared by something similar earlier in the game in one form or another.

Uh, so you do know that A9 is essentially about positioning and burning things down, right? I don't mind it myself, but I prefer A5 as an OT, though it suffers from too much DPS, causing more skipped mechanics from what I can tell in the last few runs I've had of it.

[Raikai]

I don't doubt that, but Absurdity here gives a good point about it:

And this is exactly my issue with it. This and almost every mechanic being about positioning. There is position mechanics that I like, Tsuky moon stacks are my favorite, but for the most part it's "don't stay here, you either die yourself or/and drag your whole party with you". And there's no way around it at all, you just have to dance with all those aoes. But how much more fun it would've been if there was a way to stop that aoe dance and to replace it with something else, like healcheck or something, idk. I wish we got more players responsibilities beyond just moving ourselfs from place to place. I wish we could deny bosses their abilities not by just burning their hp down.

Sometimes I wonder if the combat mechanics that are always Positionals / Kill X before bar fills are because of an actual decision of them not to risk the combat design out of their "comfort zone" or it's because of the old sphagetti code structure...

[Hatfright]

Sometimes I wonder if the combat mechanics that are always Positionals / Kill X before bar fills are because of an actual decision of them not to risk the combat design out of their "comfort zone" or it's because of the old sphagetti code structure...

Could be both tho.

Uh, so you do know that A9 is essentially about positioning and burning things down, right? I don't mind it myself, but I prefer A5 as an OT, though it suffers from too much DPS, causing more skipped mechanics from what I can tell in the last few runs I've had of it.

Essentially, yes. But much more fun for me than "you can stand here and here only, otherwise you're all dead".
And yes, A5 is fun too, too bad there's no need for tank swap anymore. And, well, skipping mechanics cuz of too much DPS is a problem for way too many fights today.