Do encounteres FEEL different now?

[Post]

Variety is good.

I've always liked the dramatic shift in vibes from Trial to Trial in ARR. The bosses have different personalities, visual touches to their avoidable attacks, and even Soken basically chooses a different genre for every boss. But, they also played pretty differently too. I don't doubt that even now they try to feel out the vibe of a boss when they create it, it's just that they have so many standards because of how they've designed their jobs and their encounter catalog to look back on showing what players do and don't like/clear that stuff probably gets filed down so that it's like... aseptic.

They've shifted away from fights having mechanics like Titan or A4s* in which attacks are aimed at players, or aimed randomly, opting instead to aim at very "set" trajectories. Compare all ARR Extremes to ShB ones. In ARR, the number of mechanics that hit set positions are like, a couple per boss (Mistral Shriek, Bomb Boulders, Radiant Plume/Dashes, Leviathan's Dashes/Slams, Moogle Delta Attack, Ramuh's point-blank aoe, Icicles). In ShB, even bosses designed to be more freeform (Crown of the Immaculate, Memoria Miseria Ex) have several (God Ray, Rightful Reprobation(Swords that Fan out and return), Beatific Vision, and most of the Starbirths; Reinforced Gunshield (random, but not based on players), Electrified Gunshield (he politely always moves mid before knocking back), and Terminus Ests from clones.

Now that I think about it, it helps inform me why I enjoyed Innocence and Memoria so much more than most of the other extremes. Especially on repeat visits, you need to be more engaged with your other party members and whether or not you're the target of something.

*

(shout out to a4s, as 'not very fun' as that fight can be, it really manages to create 'predicaments' from combining nothing-mechanics. Simple ground aoes are soo much tougher to deal with when you have adds you're trying to keep separated/facing away and tethers you're trying to stand in line with targeted at random players. a3s' Protean Waves/Sluices were like this too later in the fight.)

...Modern savage fights don't really have that (or maybe they do post door boss, my static aint that good haha).

I think you're right, and that door boss is way more of a brawl. Door bosses generally are, all the way from Exfaust to Hesperos. Ever since StB, Final Savage checkpoint bosses have been categorized by 'here's a ton of bullshit to decipher at once' mechanics, designed to require the group all discussing and reporting debuffs and contributing pieces to solve a puzzle until someone publishes a guide 2 days after the patch.

[Renathras]

It was also nice to have fights where the optimal place to stand wasn’t everyone head deep in the boss’ colon except for the main tank. I liked Ramuh EX where the party had to stay apart, there was a designated spot to stand to dispel charm, and the bard would stay out in the water to bait charms and run back in for lightning attacks. Diamond Weapon was also pretty cool in that regard, but every savage fight lately is just, find the butthole and stay there. P2S was kinda cool, but everyone huddles together still.

This is simultaneously hilarious and terrifyingly accurate. Agree 100%.

I'll have to look in the other thread about the reasoning behind BarbEx = savage, because that is not the feeling I get from it at all. Barb feels fun because it feels like a fight and not a test (even thought it is still totally a test) due to the rapid fire mechanics, at least on brawler mode. Modern savage fights don't really have that (or maybe they do post door boss, my static aint that good haha).

That was, in fact, why the person said it was a Savage. I believe the poster's comment was something along the general lines of "BarbEx committed the cardinal sin of always having something coming at you with no downtime, something common in Savages but not suited for Extremes". The "catch your breath" moments that most Extremes (all Extremes, even) have but that Savages often do not have, and it's accepted when Savages do not have them. The "rapid fire mechanics" are why BarbEx isn't an Extreme fight, it's a Savage fight.

So claims the poster, and I agree with the point.

As I said there and here, it's interesting to me that the people who loved BarbEx the most seem to be Savage raiders, not "Extreme is my endgame" people like me. To me, the only fight I liked LESS than BarbEx this tier was Endsinger.

[Iedarus]

It was also nice to have fights where the optimal place to stand wasn’t everyone head deep in the boss’ colon except for the main tank. I liked Ramuh EX where the party had to stay apart, there was a designated spot to stand to dispel charm, and the bard would stay out in the water to bait charms and run back in for lightning attacks. Diamond Weapon was also pretty cool in that regard, but every savage fight lately is just, find the butthole and stay there. P2S was kinda cool, but everyone huddles together still.

Yeah, having mechanics that force you to spread out for extended periods of time would definitely help the ranged DPS shine. Instead we have bosses with hitboxes the size of Noah's ark. I think Yoshi knows he f'ed up with that change.

[Semirhage]

Yeah, having mechanics that force you to spread out for extended periods of time would definitely help the ranged DPS shine. Instead we have bosses with hitboxes the size of Noah's ark. I think Yoshi knows he f'ed up with that change.

P7S is the most egregious. The Samurai look ridiculous just waving their katanas in the air hundreds of feet away from the actual boss. The center of the boss is so far away that I can't even hear my own spells hit it when I'm standing in the back. It's kind of disorienting.

[ForsakenRoe]

I'm fine with 100% uptime on bosses, if you have to make the strat for the mechanic in such a way that allows it. For example, I'm fine with the 100% uptime in P3S, because despite the boss's hitbox being 'not that ridiculous' in size, you can create a strategy for Firestorms of Asphodelos (the TEA Tornado bit) that allows the melee and tanks to stay close to the boss, and the healers/ranged to take the outside tornados. At least, I bullied my PF group into doing it on week 1 before Elmo Strat came along and forced the tanks to do the whole mechanic

Current raids don't feel bad because it's 100% uptime. They feel bad because they're 100% effortless uptime. 100% uptime just given to the player freely

That was, in fact, why the person said it was a Savage. I believe the poster's comment was something along the general lines of "BarbEx committed the cardinal sin of always having something coming at you with no downtime, something common in Savages but not suited for Extremes". The "catch your breath" moments that most Extremes (all Extremes, even) have but that Savages often do not have, and it's accepted when Savages do not have them. The "rapid fire mechanics" are why BarbEx isn't an Extreme fight, it's a Savage fight.

You should watch a vid or five of P6S, P7S, heck even P8S has some dead points where not much happens. Even Savage has 'catch your breath' moments. The whole reason the final enrage sequences are mit checks are because 'there is no time to catch your breath' is such an alien concept to the playerbase that they mistake 'press Medica multiple times in a row' for difficulty

[ty_taurus]

P7S is the most egregious. The Samurai look ridiculous just waving their katanas in the air hundreds of feet away from the actual boss. The center of the boss is so far away that I can't even hear my own spells hit it when I'm standing in the back. It's kind of disorienting.

I agree. Not that Bismarck is the best designed fight out there, but I liked that rather than just attacking the flying whale, there's a process of reeling him in with harpoons. I wouldn't mind massive bosses like P7S, or Engels from Copied Factory if rather than just attacking the air, there was a method to getting in close. Imagine something like the final fight with Sin in FFX, where perhaps the team has to split up. The melee's and one healer leap onto the body of the boss to take out pieces of the boss and dismantle it part-by-part, while the ranged stay back with the other healer and chip away at the boss' total health, not directly being attacked but handling things like static adds and orbs to pop, or things like the crystals from E8S.

[ForsakenRoe]

I agree. Not that Bismarck is the best designed fight out there, but I liked that rather than just attacking the flying whale, there's a process of reeling him in with harpoons. I wouldn't mind massive bosses like P7S, or Engels from Copied Factory if rather than just attacking the air, there was a method to getting in close. Imagine something like the final fight with Sin in FFX, where perhaps the team has to split up. The melee's and one healer leap onto the body of the boss to take out pieces of the boss and dismantle it part-by-part, while the ranged stay back with the other healer and chip away at the boss' total health, not directly being attacked but handling things like static adds and orbs to pop, or things like the crystals from E8S.

This game's lack of a Z axis makes it a nuisance, but something like Dathea could be done, I'd assume. The gist for those who can't really see what tf is going on in a WOW raid (understandable) is that when the big add dies, it does a knockback blast from it's location, everyone needs to position to not get knocked off the platform. However, when the add spawns, an additional large add, and multiple little adds appear on one of three outside platforms. The strat is that you have two groups of players who alternate, who stays down and who goes up. The tanks are forced to alternate because the boss's tankswap debuff increases how far the TB knocks them, so they eventually would just be launched off the platform. So you go up when it's your turn, kill the small adds who are bombarding the raid with stacking damage, then kill the big add to get another KB blast to get back to the main platform. There's also a suck-in, a Nisi/Rot thing that spreads via contact, and tornadoes that randomly zoom across the arena and knock you into the air if they hit you (big fall damage), but the main point is the alternating 'add kill group' thing, because we have EG the Syrcus Tower boss where he starts powering up and you have to jump all around the edge platforms (now skipped because of ILVL gap)

Imagine if, instead of being a static phase of the fight, in E8S the boss would occasionally start channeling 'Flood of Light', and you had to send people out to deal with the add phase. Too many go, and you are wasting potential boss damage, too few go and you fail the phase and enrage, something like that. Or another example, the Time Jails in A12S. More stuff like that

Oh and specifically for the point about Engels, since you brought it up I'm gonna unleash the world's coldest take: the last boss fight (9S) should have been on top of Engels, not some random ass platform so far out into the fog it can't be seen

[fulminating]

I did t5,t9,t13 and a4s on blue mage immediately after asphodelos. I know it’s not really a representative comparison because it’s blue mage but between that and ultima unreal, asphodelos felt very underwhelming. I’m not sure if it’s how scripted things currently are, or the lack of autos or just how safe they’re playing it, but there’s just something missing. I guess the “set-piece mechanics” also feel kind of overcooked too - and the number of body checks. Compare pinax and megaflare. There’s also nearly no add phases or there’s “add phases” like p8s snakes. The body checks also seem much more common and just uninspired really.
(Just as a disclaimer again, I’d probably put the difficulty of blu stuff there on par with middle of the road extremes rather than truly savage level)

Rivenroad had that thing with the meteors, although that may have been in a completely different engine. Given how twintania doesn’t deal with the uneven floor well, it seems like they might be able to do something with the z axis even now, although it being anything other than a gimmick seems unlikely.

[Sebazy]

IMHO FFXIV boss design is fundamentally different now to what we had back in ARR and HW for the most part.

In ARR tended to follow small rotation loops that would evolve throughout each phase of the fight. These phases were generally broken up with various intermissions, but outside of those, the core evolving rotation principle stood true pretty much until A12S which marked quite a shift in design.

Alex Prime was the first modern Savage fight IMO. We saw the start of a shift away from damage (incoming and outgoing) as the focus of the fight to an emphasis on puzzles with the fight being more of a long linear sequence. If you could safely and consistently solve the puzzles you'd find the DPS check to be shockingly lenient for an end of tier Savage boss, however the fountains at the end of the boss were practically a soft enrage with how few groups would both see them AND successfully resolve them

With the switch to a more linear type of design, we've also seen the puzzles getting both progressively more complex and slower to compensate. RubiEX and BarbEX are interesting because BarbEX is such an old school fight. I still don't think it's particularly challenging or hard hitting, but it wouldn't have been out of place if you dropped it in HW.

RubiEX on the other hand pretty much sums up everything that is bad with SE's current design flow. It's too slow, I don't think it actually deals enough damage to kill a warrior and once you have the puzzle figured, there's very little challenge left. Even though overall it deals similar raid damage to BarbEX, you'd never know it if you weren't looking at logs.

We've gone from Heigan Dances to doing crosswords in a retirement home IMO

[Post]

I think they're hesitant to include mechanics like Leviathan's Switch, Dragonkillers, Shrinking Hydraulic Missiles etc. in general anymore. If there's a major change in dungeons, 24 man and normal raids (and even extreme trials), there are far fewer encounters that require at least 1 person to "do a thing" to prevent a wipe, instead heavily favoring "you mess up, you die alone."

Take the old 24 man standby, starting with Xande: Stand in the puddle to prevent it from exploding and hitting the whole raid, happening while there's a boss to fight.
This mechanic shows up in Syrcus for the first time, World of Darkness (endboss), Void Ark (3rd boss at the very end, often skipped), Mhach (2nd boss), Dun Scaith (endboss), and forms of it in dungeons beyond. It shows up more complex, less punishing forms in Ivalice raids: Mateus' 3-person puddles, Belias' Time-bombs, T.G. Cid's 6x 3-person stacks, Ultima's "catch" angels. They only show up in two bosses in The Puppet's Bunker, and the bosses basically do nothing while they're out. They're gone so far in EW.

They probably make this shift away from higher proactive play to prevent wipes because it feels bad in extreme cases like Ozma or T.G. Cid where one (even non-tank) player can wipe a raid and feels even worse to be the player that messed up, doesn't know why, and has a shitty party that just berates them for it. I don't know if dying over and over, getting rezzed (or healers even giving up rezzing you) and having the party win the fight with you barely contributing and you learning nothing about the fight is much better, though, because that's currently how all levels of difficulty of the game work up until Extreme, which sometimes only enforces not dying because of an eventual enrage.

And +1 that savages are NOT characterized by always throwing something at you every moment. More and more they're characterized by doing one big messy puzzle thing every minute or so, with long periods of downtime that have maybe a couple token raid-wides and tankbusters to give purpose to 60% of tank/healer/dps mitigation toolkits.

Alexander Creator was absolutely the first 'modern' raid tier, they said that that was the level of difficulty they wanted to strive for from then on. Additionally, with things like cooldown resets, fights could be even more scripted from a job perspective, so the expectation of damage and mitigation could be a lot more predictable, rather than Hallowed Ground potentially being a thing you'd save for the next wipe (though players often started simply waiting for cooldowns due to the excessive tuning of Gordias).