Hi FFXIV players, can you fill out some questions for a university paper about FFXIV?

[Crossu]

Hello everyone, hope you're having a nice day.

I'm currently working on a university paper about Final Fantasy XIV Encounters and I want to gather data from different players. The encounters will be from the Shadowbringer expansion with a focus on the mechanical side of the fight, so I'll appreciate if you have that in mind.

Encounters can be anything combat related introduced in ShB (Dungeons 71-80, Trials, 24-man, etc.)

If you can answer this questions:

1. What's your preferred role in a fight?
   
2. What's the highest difficulty you have consistently cleared in this expansion?
   
3. Whats your favourite encounter this expansion? Why?
   
4. What's your least favourite encounter this expansion? Why?

Thank you so much for helping!!

[TeraRamis]

What's your preferred role in a fight? AFK.
What's the highest difficulty you have consistently cleared in this expansion? None.
Whats your favourite encounter this expansion? Why? Not applicable.
What's your least favourite encounter this expansion? Why? The twins.

[Anhra]

Hello everyone, hope you're having a nice day.

I'm currently working on a university paper about Final Fantasy XIV Encounters and I want to gather data from different players. The encounters will be from the Shadowbringer expansion with a focus on the mechanical side of the fight, so I'll appreciate if you have that in mind.

Encounters can be anything combat related introduced in ShB (Dungeons 71-80, Trials, 24-man, etc.)

If you can answer this questions:

1. What's your preferred role in a fight?
   
2. What's the highest difficulty you have consistently cleared in this expansion?
   
3. Whats your favourite encounter this expansion? Why?
   
4. What's your least favourite encounter this expansion? Why?

Thank you so much for helping!!

Nice try, Blizzard.

[MoofiaBossVal]

1. Melee DPS, namely Samurai. I don't have to worry about lining up my group buffs with the rest of the raid like other jobs have to do with their buffs, I just concentrate on my rotation and positioning and leave others to worry about themselves.

2. E6 Savage while it was current with my FC. We got half way through E7 Savage but never finished it.

3. The second to last fight of Dalriada where you fight two bosses at once, followed by the final fight of Castrum Lacus Litore. Part of it is just the aesthetics and the story, but mechanically they tend to rely less on huge AoEs you have to run out of (which I find to be cheap) so there is more awareness in trying to track where the Griffon is going to jump and where you should be standing to avoid getting hit by his cross AoE (while also avoiding getting killed by the other boss in the Dalriada fight), and there is more going on having to pay attention to multiple different mobs (but not too many). The Dawon fight in Castrum is also fun because it does a second fight like in WoW where a small contingent of players has to go off and fight a miniboss (like Sha of Fear or Siegecrafter in WoW).

4. E2 Savage. It's slow and boring and very reliant on standing in precisely the right place to avoid getting hit by a big AoE. Aesthetically dull to look at for hours and hours and the music is noisy and I mute it.

[Vinupra-Rosa]

1: Caster DPS! To get to specifics, it's RDM. I'm okay with healing and tanking (I'm omni) but I find DPSing more engaging.
2: I'd say Dalriada. I cleared extremes and a single savage, but not consistently due to real-life and in-game/personal constraints (internet, lack of static).
3: Dalriada, followed by SoS Extreme. I love how Dalriada keeps me on my toes while being approachable. Music is great too. SoS Ex is a good balance of RNG and predictability, has amazing music and visuals, and... the lore around it just cranks it up to 11.
4: E5S. It's the only Savage I cleared, but i also hated it because of how badly it interacts with my ping. I'm on 200ms, which means that the knockback portion is HELL for me. I have a much narrower window of failure than everyone else.

[Roda]

1. Caster dps. Love me some smn.
2. farming e12s, workin' on perfect alex.
3. Honestly, Savage Delubrim Reginae, minotaur fight. It has consistently had me hooting out in laughter every time I got there.
4. e8s. Light rampant is a poorly communicated mechanic (one person messes up and you can't see anything as everyone dies), and we REALLY didn't need to have the camera ogle a nearly naked teenager in an unskippable cutscene for as long as it did, or at all really. Then immediately following that up with the story thread of having the characters uncritically say

"Child grooming is romantic, actually." and "I know he was a bad guy, but aww wasn't he sweet? "

makes my skin crawl

[Aarchie]

Heya

What's your preferred role in a fight? I'm forever a healer! I like support jobs, and I always choose them over anything else.
What's the highest difficulty you have consistently cleared in this expansion? I would say E11s, with prog in E12s.
Whats your favourite encounter this expansion? Why? Oh my, so many! I have all been a big fan of the 24-man raids, and the tower (although not hard) has some interesting and fresh mechanics. Trial wise, I like Shiva from Eden raids and Titania from the MSQ trials. Mostly because of the music and visuals in this case.
What's your least favourite encounter this expansion? Why? Ruby Weapon extreme. Goodness, I hate that fight, I have the feeling that some mechanics are a bit clunky (at least for my brain). The seat of Sacrifice extreme is not a bad encounter (I actually quite like it!) but Quintuple Cast is a mechanic I would like to see burn alongside 1.0 servers.

[ItMe]

What's your preferred role in a fight?
Tank, because I don't like being being backbone of the party.
I like playing a supporting role and being the one who accommodates others (and healing is too hectic for me). I don't really like being the center of the party.
Some say tanking is stressful, or that they get tankxiety because it feels like the party crumbles when you go down, but honestly I feel like the backbone of the party are its big performers: the DPS. If they aren't pulling their weight you hit a check and just... can't clear. Tanks can make mistakes and not cause the party to disband, and I like that lack of stress.
Also, I don't get tunnel vision when tanking, and can pay more attention to what's happening and help with callouts.


What's the highest difficulty you have consistently cleared in this expansion?
Savage.


Whats your favourite encounter this expansion? Why?
Man there are a lot of fun ones.

I love how Titan (Unreal) has some tricky shit to it's design that doesn't QUITE translate to the modern version of the game, which actually... kinda makes it more fun.
Like, Titan's pattern loops, but it loops slightly faster than your cooldowns can be ready for if you're not very careful.
It means that the longer the fight goes the more everything just kinda... unwinds. It's really interesting because it's both a fight with strict coreography, but at the same time it's all about that in the moment scramble as everything dissolves.

I really liked Hades (Extreme).
Having a trial chocked full of DPS checks gave every phase that "oh man it could all end here" excitement, and then when you got good it's more fun than normal to see how much of each phase you can push to skip because each phase has its own HP bar showing you did what % better.
Also, the boss fight is just super neat.
I like the music.
I like the concept behind Hades.
The execution for you rebattling the ascians was really well done and they used familiar mechanics and concepts in new ways.
And even though the falling circle AoEs can sometimes blind the user as they're coming down, the mechanics are just fun to do.
(Also, Hades respects your time and drops 2 totems for your effort)

But if you made me pick a #1 favorite I might have to say Eden 3 (Savage), which is an odd pick I know.
More than any other boss though this dude somehow gives me the feeling we're fighting a really really big dude that just wants to fuck us up.
I'm not sure why.
Maybe because of the way they break the arena as they're attacking us.
Maybe because there's more of us scrambling out of the way as we try to literally dodge them, instead of just moving to clear mechanics and markers.
Maybe it's because it was my first trial where I actually had to map out my invulns.
Maybe it's also something as simple as the boss hanging off the edge of the arena, which for me has always visually kinda paralleled the way it looked in the old turn based games (big boss over there, and all your little dudes on this side).
But whatever it's doing I dig it.
But also that fight is tense, especially for me who went through it in solo que so I never knew if we'd survive Black Smokers, even in week 10 clear parties. Which would normally be annoying as hell since that's at the end of the fight and you waste a lot of time if someone wipes there, but honestly I enjoyed the boss fight so much I rarely ever cared.


What's your least favourite encounter this expansion? Why?
Probably Shiva (Unreal).
I don't think her weapon swapping is all that interesting or realized a mechanic, and that's basically all that the whole encounter has going for it.
On one hand I appreciate that she can sometimes pull out her sword OR her staff can bring a little variety, it ultimately amounts to very little variation.
There are no fights I don't enjoy to some extend, this is just the one I enjoyed the least.



Good luck on your paper.
If possible, will you post it here after you write it so we can all enjoy it?

[Puremallace]

1. What's your preferred role in a fight?
   Tank or Ranged DPS
   
2. What's the highest difficulty you have consistently cleared in this expansion?
   Just normal. I prefer to keep up the illusion that the FF14 community is always nice and I am burned out from raiding in WoW permanently.
   
3. Whats your favourite encounter this expansion? Why?
   Last one of 5.0 and not going to spoil. You get to fight the most well written villain in any genre ever.
   
4. What's your least favourite encounter this expansion? Why?
   E12, The big Booba monster seemed kind of silly and distracted from a fight with a deeper meaning. It would be like if they made Tsukuyomi 100 feet tall or something as it would distract from the deeper emotional fight

[Vencio]

What's your preferred role in a fight?

(Paladin)

I can act as an emergency healer for both myself & others.

I can cast DPS range cool magical attacks.

Requiesta our most valuable ability: Auto cast both heals & dps provided MP is at 80% or higher.

Hollow ground our most sacred ability to withstand everything.

So many defensive abilities.

We have DPS dots & great MP regeneration through our attacks.

Holy Knight/Hero vibe.

What's the highest difficulty you have consistently cleared in this expansion?

(Bozja relics)

It took me about a month to process how it works & the grind burnt me out couple times. Yet worth the reward.

Whats your favourite encounter this expansion? Why?

(Knights of Round)

Love the theme, boss mechanics & it feels heroic.

What's your least favourite encounter this expansion? Why?

(Eden Savage)

Still trying to get Umbra’s. Unrelenting mechanics.

Then again I am not a hardcore raider & don’t want to be.