And the slow death of the RPG based battlesystem

[Valence]

Multiple big chunks of the game battle system have been removed over time, notably in ShB, without adding much replacement. It seems that everything is moving toward a system fully centered around boss mechanics and perfect dances to execute (DDR type). What further cements me in that line of thought are the recent criterion dungeons, and while the introduction of a chill but challenging light party mode to the game is actually great to get out of savage/ultimate/savage/ultimate, it even further tries to limit the amount of raises and recuperating actions to artificially gate progress, finally bringing healer's and raisers' MP pool to total uselessness in that specific game mode. One can still limp through those fights since they surprisingly enough don't have a huge amount of body checks (another breath of fresh air!), but that's about it.

We have since moved away from MP management mattering, which I thought would not be a thing anytime soon in the game, but how wrong was I. Let's list what battlesystem mechanics we have lost over time:

- Aggro management
- MP/personal resources management with negative MP/TP regens
- Party resource management (MP, etc)
- Progression based on damage, mitigation, raising, limping through
- Job rotations based on constraints like tactical nukes with long cast times (3+ seconds Flare, 3s Fire IV, 2.5s Glare, 5s Flamethrower, etc), homogenization of actions...
- Homogenization of raid burst timers, often combined with hard raid mechanics just to artificially inflate difficulty (pinax, act 2/4, superchain 1, superchain 2A, classical elements, pangenesis, caloric theory 2... notice a pattern yet? You'll find the same in criterions)
- Actual pets with HP pools as their own entities.

What we have left so far:

- Healing
- Mitigation, in fact we have a crapload of those now, but you could do with half less and still be fine...

What's left is rarely what's killing or wiping you. What does is someone fucking up a mechanic most of the time. The rest is essentially DDR and running all around artificial platforms. I'm not saying that mechanics were not a thing back then, far from it, and I still enjoy the ones that feel tactical enough (part 2 of 4th savage fights, etc), but it's a matter of ratios. Those days it feels like 95% of fights are just doing mechanics. I could have a third party tool playing my rotation for me and it wouldn't even matter, because there is no real choice and player agency left anymore to begin with, no party support, no player toolkit coordination and synergy. I'm not saying rotations are easier or anything, I'm just saying choice and tactics have progressively left the field to focus on Dance Dance Revolution. I feel that the game isn't going in a direction I like, and while I'm sure some players do like it, I don't, so here is my useless feedback. At least I do hope it works as an observation of the game mechanical evolution...?


( edit maybe I should have posted this in other battle systems... )

Edit 2: I forgot to add pets to the list of casualties. Maybe they removed the clunk and jank, but pets are now essentially tied to your character casting an ability on your own hotbar, activating the pet's mirror ability, and introducing some lag and delays for little reason. It's a joke.

[KenZentra]

I absolutely agree, (also maybe it being in another place, maybe even General Discussion idk) I've also said somewhere out there in some thread, that in many cases the boss itself is the least important part of an encounter. Repositioning themselves, all damage is kinda predetermined (for instance never crits), mechanics are less about "deal with this problem" and more of "stand here to not die" and when the mechanic is over, thats it no fallout from it the builds up through the encounter. Most the arenas are flat squares and circles. In this 3D game, there really isnt a 3D aspect to the game. For example BLM in PVP has Superflare, and it barely works in FL because of the difference in altitude. You really could press all of the models down into flat images and play the game top-down and get roughly the same experience.

So much of the game is simplified, there really isnt any complex systems in the game and absolutely no customization aside from your player model and glamour. No player expression aside from your looks either. This game has SO MUCH potential for customization, but there is either too much structure (things being formulaic) or a lack of ambition from the devs for one reason or another. Idk if its that SE is trying to min-max revenue (as companies always do) by keeping things easy to plan, make, balance, introduce, build upon rather than spending more on a bigger team, and potentially costly overhauls, but its suffocating.

My favorite duty of all time is T1. Its really basic, and thats fine, but the design for just the instance itself leaves me in awe of how amazing it looks, so much change in altitude especially for the boss fight. And the boss fight, also very basic, but has a 3D aspect to the fight, you can't necessarily easily move from platform to platform when there is a AoE so where YOU are positioned matters beyond just "Stand here to not get hit".

It really is DDR nowadays, and its sad.

[HikariKurosawa]

Mechanic based difficulty is always going to create more unique and engaging encounters compared to rotation based difficulty. I love the direction this game has been heading in personally, and can't really relate to those who want more complex rotations back.

Maybe it's because I refuse to use third party tools and actually have to figure out the mechanics on my own. It would make a lot of sense for people who are cheating at the game to find it boring. When rotations are the difficult component, mechanics have to be simplified and homogenized. Then boss fights have little to no identity or are extremely simplistic.

It's much better this way, the solution is to just uninstall all the third party tools(cheats) that most people complaining about the direction of rotations have installed.

[Rithy255]

Mechanic based difficulty is always going to create more unique and engaging encounters compared to rotation based difficulty. I love the direction this game has been heading in personally, and can't really relate to those who want more complex rotations back.

Maybe it's because I refuse to use third party tools and actually have to figure out the mechanics on my own. It would make a lot of sense for people who are cheating at the game to find it boring. When rotations are the difficult component, mechanics have to be simplified and homogenized. Then boss fights have little to no identity or are extremely simplistic.

It's much better this way, the solution is to just uninstall all the third party tools(cheats) that most people complaining about the direction of rotations have installed.

Not everyone is looking for mechanic based difficulty, Alot of people like MMORPG's for the RPG aspect feeling that their build (class in this case) brings something to the team and has a different sort of feeling to the rest of the other classes.

You can argue that we should all care about fight design only, but that's not what everyone wants.

I actually think this sort of class Varity and RPG aspects helps fight design be more repayable personally but that's just my opinion I guess.

[HikariKurosawa]

Like dance partner, ninja trick attack, samurai dps, black mage dps, bard songs, dragoon eye, rdm and smn revive, smn consistent dps and flashy summons, the list goes on. I don't see a problem at all with what jobs in this game have to bring to the table individually.

I think tons of players in this game just use third party addons that take away so much from the experience that they have become unable to actually assess how the game feels anymore. I'm not saying you do, but too many people abuse cheats in this game.

[Rithy255]

Like dance partner, ninja trick attack, samurai dps, black mage dps, bard songs, dragoon eye, rdm and smn revive, smn consistent dps and flashy summons, the list goes on. I don't see a problem at all with what jobs in this game have to bring to the table individually.

I think tons of players in this game just use third party addons that take away so much from the experience that they have become unable to actually assess how the game feels anymore. I'm not saying you do, but too many people abuse cheats in this game.

I barely touch harder content currently, I did used to but not my thing currently as fight design to me feels kinda meh.
I think people who are wanting more class design and jobs to be more interesting actually are the reverse. People who want more RPG aspects and interesting job design are not high optimisers who might be using said tools.

I'm more of a casual/midcore player who just wants classes to feel different from one another personally, I think the funny thing you didn't list is whats my key issue is you didn't list a tank/Healer here because I think those designs are what hurt the game a lot in Varity and DPS seems to slowly be going in the same direction that tanks/healers already are in, which has caused people to actually speak out... mainly the whole "2minute meta"

The game isn't the same game as it used to be and for better or for worse some people don't really like that and others don't mind it, Usually I find it's the people who complain about their job not doing "top damage" is the reason why a lot of things get changed and Not the people who want to enjoy class Varity.

[HikariKurosawa]

I barely touch harder content currently, I did used to but not my thing currently as fight design to me feels kinda meh.
I think people who are wanting more class design and jobs to be more interesting actually are the reverse. People who want more RPG aspects and interesting job design are not high optimisers who might be using said tools.

I'm more of a casual/midcore player who just wants classes to feel different from one another personally, I think the funny thing you didn't list is whats my key issue is you didn't list a tank/Healer here because I think those designs are what hurt the game a lot in Varity and DPS seems to slowly be going in the same direction that tanks/healers already are in, which has caused people to actually speak out... mainly the whole "2minute meta"

The game isn't the same game as it used to be and for better or for worse some people don't really like that and others don't mind it, Usually I find it's the people who complain about their job not doing "top damage" is the reason why a lot of things get changed and Not the people who want to enjoy class Varity.

I don't have enough experience with tank or healer to remark on them. Sage and white mage in my experience are extremely different though. Same with gunbreaker and the other tanks I have played.

What kind of differences would you want really? Visually speaking every job is extremely unique, the pace of their rotations is also unique, the tools they have are all very different, can you please elaborate on what is so similar and what you would do differently? I don't really see this problem. 2 minute window just makes sense, it doesn't define the way a job plays. It defines the pace of the encounters.

[Valence]

Mechanic based difficulty is always going to create more unique and engaging encounters compared to rotation based difficulty. I love the direction this game has been heading in personally, and can't really relate to those who want more complex rotations back.

Spoiler alert: people that think that rotations used to be a lot more complex or whatever fancy tale they like to tell themselves to cope with how people have gotten better at the game are living with pink tinted glasses. It's never been about more complex rotations, and in fact, the OP I made specifically took great lengths in talking about the game battle system, and not job rotations. I'll agree that I mentioned them in one item, but the point was again, a paradigm on cast times and tactical choices, not on specific job rotational mechanics.

Also, this is not a binary problem as you make it sound, and again I tried to put forth that it's not about having 100-0 mechanics to rpg systems or 0-100, but a good blend of both. The point of the OP is raising the issue that it's slowly but surely gliding towards the 0 to 100 ratio those days, and it's worrying.

Maybe it's because I refuse to use third party tools and actually have to figure out the mechanics on my own. It would make a lot of sense for people who are cheating at the game to find it boring. When rotations are the difficult component, mechanics have to be simplified and homogenized. Then boss fights have little to no identity or are extremely simplistic.

Maybe it's because I refuse to use third party tools and actually have to figure out the mechanics on my own. It would make a lot of sense for people who are cheating at the game to find it boring.

When rotations are the difficult component, mechanics have to be simplified and homogenized. Then boss fights have little to no identity or are extremely simplistic.

It's much better this way, the solution is to just uninstall all the third party tools(cheats) that most people complaining about the direction of rotations have installed.

Who said that the fights or mechanics are boring? They do a great job in introducing new things. However things have become extremely formulaic and as somebody has pointed out, even if mechanically the coils raids are less stunningly intricate than some of what we have today, the bosses on their own, I'm sorry but they feel a lot more unique and varied throughout the whole series, for the very reason that they're not trying to focus 100% of the time on the same unique thing: having super nice boss mechanics that ultimately always boil down to pair/spread/donut/tethers/etc.

Are you accusing somebody of cheating? This isn't about nasa mods and finding mechanics boring...

I think honestly that you completely missed the point.

Like dance partner, ninja trick attack, samurai dps, black mage dps, bard songs, dragoon eye, rdm and smn revive, smn consistent dps and flashy summons, the list goes on. I don't see a problem at all with what jobs in this game have to bring to the table individually.

I think tons of players in this game just use third party addons that take away so much from the experience that they have become unable to actually assess how the game feels anymore. I'm not saying you do, but too many people abuse cheats in this game.

Individually being the keyword here.

But I do honestly feel that you're trying to push another agenda with another subject with your third party obsession... I'm sorry but that's completely beside the point. You're throwing wild accusations then saying you're not accusing me or the people here of doing it... Then, what is the point behind this?

[Shurrikhan]

Mechanic based difficulty is always going to create more unique and engaging encounters compared to rotation based difficulty.

Compared to rotations in isolation, sure, as those are what you do against striking dummies. Compared to a fight that requires significant adjustments to both the overarching rotations (2-minute loop) and to or within smaller strings, though? Not necessarily; the mechanics, if the kits so permit, can easily create more rotational complexity and the kits in turn make the fight feel more fulfilling (but generally in a way that, unless tuning is extremely tight, also doesn't come with the lesser accessibility of forming that engagement from [body-check] mechanics).

Personally, I'm fine with there being content in which mechanics are 80+% of the gameplay. My issue is that there's no difficult content for which all else isn't (almost) wholly eclipsed by the simple ability to perform mechanics. Arguably, there is only even one genre we'd consider crafted "content" (rather than mere mob-grinds) outside of that. We have MobGrinds, TrivialHallwaySprints... and then TrialsV1, TrialsV2 (Normal Raids), TrialsV3 (Alliance Raids' Raid Bosses), and TrialsV4 (Savage Raids), and TrialsV5 (Ultimate).

The short of it is that rotations (be they overarching rotations, tactics, or fine adjustments) can only be as varied as content allows, but in the pursuit of making the content's own mechanics as clear as possible, content has increasingly failed to give rotations anything to vary or be varied by, which in turn makes a fight feel that much more similar between runs, between a job's place among different players/compositions and consequent strategies, and in playing the fight across different jobs.

When using the same rotation for every fight, yeah, rotations would quickly lose their novelty. But, lacking much interaction between kit and the given fight, the various skins of in, out, left, right, clocks, cardinals, etc. also lose their novelty that much more quickly, making fights increasingly feel same-y.

I don't know what the perfect solution here is. Doubtless, fights would take up some constraints in efforts to better leverage kits. But without that, fights and kits both take far less time to lose apparent depth and uniqueness.

That being said, those constraints are nowhere near what you seem to be imagining.

[Valence]

Compared to rotations in isolation, sure, as those are what you do against striking dummies. Compared to a fight that requires significant adjustments to both the overarching rotations (2-minute loop) and to or within smaller strings, though? Not necessarily; the mechanics, if the kits so permit, can easily create more rotational complexity and the kits in turn make the fight feel more fulfilling (but generally in a way that, unless tuning is extremely tight, also doesn't come with the lesser accessibility of forming that engagement from [body-check] mechanics).

Personally, I'm fine with there being content in which mechanics are 80+% of the gameplay. My issue is that there's no difficult content for which all else isn't (almost) wholly eclipsed by the simple ability to perform mechanics. Arguably, there is only even one genre we'd consider crafted "content" (rather than mere mob-grinds) outside of that. We have MobGrinds, TrivialHallwaySprints... and then TrialsV1, TrialsV2 (Normal Raids), TrialsV3 (Alliance Raids' Raid Bosses), and TrialsV4 (Savage Raids), and TrialsV5 (Ultimate).

The short of it is that rotations (be they overarching rotations, tactics, or fine adjustments) can only be as varied as content allows, but in the pursuit of making the content's own mechanics as clear as possible, content has increasingly failed to give rotations anything to vary or be varied by, which in turn makes a fight feel that much more similar between runs, between a job's place among different players/compositions and consequent strategies, and in playing the fight across different jobs.

When using the same rotation for every fight, yeah, rotations would quickly lose their novelty. But, lacking much interaction between kit and the given fight, the various skins of in, out, left, right, clocks, cardinals, etc. also lose their novelty that much more quickly, making fights increasingly feel same-y.

I don't know what the perfect solution here is. Doubtless, fights would take up some constraints in efforts to better leverage kits. But without that, fights and kits both take far less time to lose apparent depth and uniqueness.

That being said, those constraints are nowhere near what you seem to be imagining.

You actually touch to a point I completely omitted in the OP, which is the total homogenization of fight models. Everything today is a variant of a trial, be it raids, criterion, or actual trials. Most pve today boils down to beat the crap out of a boss in a battle arena. Trash mob on the side is always the same, in the same amounts of packs between each walls in the case of dungeons. There is so little variation that when you actually get hard content with trash (criterion) it immediately feels like a breath of fresh air, and yet, it follows the exact same patterns between every criterion. When one thinks about it, why do they feel so constrained and forced to constantly have every piece of content following the same overused model down to a T? Having patches following a formulaic pattern is one thing, but fight models?


Just imagine the face of players the day we get a dungeon where the first boss waits for your immediately? And then you get completely different trash mob patterns, perhaps even randomized a little, some "gate bosses"? That's not a lot of variation, but even such a tiny thing would suddenly feel like playing a whole different game already, and it goes a long way showing how much the current formulaic, rigid patterns are oppressive. Why does every dungeon have to be 2 mob packs > boss 1 > 2 mob packs > boss 2 > 2 mob packs > boss 3? Criterion tried to backpedal a little and revisit the concept of trash, which is cool, but what do we get now? Interesting trash 1 > boss 1 > Interesting trash 2 > boss 2 > boss 3, every single time.

What the heck?