Meaningless Battles...

[Hayden]

Anyone else kind of OVER Square Enix lazy writing? Namely, battles that mean nothing.

Scripted fights that force you to lose, and serious boss battles where winning means nothing.


Winning the battle, and losing in the cut scene is a favourite trope of Square Enix and I'm kind of over it?

Like, give the villian a back up plan, make something else happen. Make my win feel like it mattered.

Quit letting villian's shake off asskickings.

Most recent update, the cut scene made that whole fight mean nothing, and I felt as if the work I put into winning was for nothing.

Eh, dunknow...it wouldn't be a big deal if they didn't pull this shit at LEAST once an Xpac?

just me?

[Zeastria]

I always had the feeling that our Wol is weak, and cant do shit w/o the power of friendship..x)

[Tsumdere]

I always had the feeling that our Wol is weak, and cant do shit w/o the power of friendship..x)

I just pretend like my WoL does everything by themselves unless it has trusts. Makes me feel cooler.

I actually also hate scripted loss fights unless its in the context of the enemy getting away or some intervening force. I didn't like that I lost to Zenos in Stormblood. I thought it was stupid. I would have rather it be a draw. I also thought losing to Golbez was dumb.

[Hayden]

I just pretend like my WoL does everything by themselves unless it has trusts. Makes me feel cooler.

I actually also hate scripted loss fights unless its in the context of the enemy getting away or some intervening force. I didn't like that I lost to Zenos in Stormblood. I thought it was stupid. I would have rather it be a draw. I also thought losing to Golbez was dumb.

THATS the thing though, we didn't lose to Golbez, we kicked his ass. Just the Narriative needed him to win so...*shrug*

[Themarvin]

they should introduce AI to the boss mechanics... would be interesting to never be able to cactbot or write any guides to anything, especially for savage and ultimates, it would be nice when we get to be it that it is the player having to do things and not by some dork with a mic video.

[dspguy]

they should introduce AI to the boss mechanics... would be interesting to never be able to cactbot or write any guides to anything, especially for savage and ultimates, it would be nice when we get to be it that it is the player having to do things and not by some dork with a mic video.

I raided every expansion until part of ShB. I sort of got tired of the scripted battles. Don't get me wrong, they are challenging, but mostly just based on memorization. The name of the game was always being proactive, not reactive. They should really mix up these mechanics more than they do. Instead of just being:

Mechanic 1 followed by Mechanic 2 followed by Mechanic 3 or 4 followed by Mechanic 5 followed by unused mechanic 3 or 4 etc etc

It should be more like...

5 > 1 > 3 > 5 > 6 > 2 > 3 > 4 etc

You get to a point in these savage raids where you are doing your rotation and looking for a certain "tell" every 30 seconds and going where you need to go. Don't get me wrong - when raids first came out, especially as the expansions went onwards, they came up with very unique mechanics. However, things are too scripted. Randomize it.

[Eorzean_username]

You get to a point in these savage raids where you are doing your rotation and looking for a certain "tell" every 30 seconds and going where you need to go. [...] However, things are too scripted. Randomize it.

Tough call. Part of what makes FFXIV stand out as somewhat-unique in terms of its raiding is how incredibly, precisely-scripted almost every mechanic and timeline tends to be.

This makes encounters become stale or "rote" faster, but it hypothetically also allows for more precise rotational execution, and more complex rotational design.

That said, if XIV continues to move in the direction of simplifying rotational execution and refinement, then maybe it would make sense to introduce a lot more reactivity and variation into the encounter designs.

Considerations regarding this include:

• How would it interact with XIV rotational design and the buff-alignment meta-playstyle?

• Would the "high end" XIV playerbase object to losing the ability to (in many cases) precisely-script their rotation, down to the GCD?

• Can the XIV engine / server responsiveness / etc, actually handle truly spontaneous, randomised, or unpredictable mechanics? (ie — How much of the current system "works" because players can kind of "compensate" for it by exactly anticipating many elements ahead of time, or otherwise compensating for erratic responsiveness with predictability?)

[MikkoAkure]

Boss fights you're supposed to lose have been in RPGs for the past 30+ years and SE aren't the only ones to do it. Elden Ring even begins with one. It's just a narrative tool and I don't really see a problem with it unless it's an RPG with items and I end up wasting them, not knowing I was supposed to lose.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

Boss fights you're supposed to lose have been in RPGs for the past 30+ years and SE aren't the only ones to do it. Elden Ring even begins with one. It's just a narrative tool and I don't really see a problem with it unless it's an RPG with items and I end up wasting them, not knowing I was supposed to lose.

Only in JRPGs. I've always thought if you can't win the fight they might as well make it a cutscene.

[SannaR]

Only in JRPGs. I've always thought if you can't win the fight they might as well make it a cutscene.

Doesn't God of War Ragnarok also start with a fight you're not meant to win? I'm sure there many other non JRPGs that have fights you're just supposed to loose or stay alive until X.