Is the game shifting into fast visual puzzles?

[Akonyl]

If you've done stuff like High Concept/Pangenesis fine before, I think this may be an issue more with how you approach the mechanics, rather than it being "visual mechanics" specifically that aren't possible for you. Using EX2 Vollok as an example, I could see someone having issues if they looked at the two flashing platforms, tried to mesh the shapes together in their head, and then resolved the mechanic. But a much easier way to do it (for example, but not the only way) is, in my opinion:
- There's only 2 platforms which contain swords in the middle (and each one has them diagonal from each other). Find both of them.
- Pre-position on an inside square, and look at the platform containing that one (one of the two you already identified)
- When he syncs, and the aoe glows go out, if the platform you're looking at isn't glowing, stay still (you found your safe spot already).
- If it is glowing, look at the second platform with a middle sword. If it's glowing, go to the wall (not a corner), if it isn't, move to an adjacent middle square (this will match one of the swords from the second platform)
- adjust diagonally to dodge the cleave as needed (diagonal of your safe spot should also be a safe spot)

In a lot of cases, "visual vomit" type mechanics can be boiled down to a pretty simple flowchart, similar to what you would use for something like high concept / pangenesis / etc. The above may not be the best way for you to think of it, but in general, if a mechanic feels like it's asking you to mentally resolve too many things at once, it helps a lot to break it down into smaller steps.

[Arohk]

With all of them, there's always a "trick" I have to figure out to be able to solve them quickly.

not really, there is hardly any puzzle mechanic in the game where the solution is not instantly clear, you just need to memorize the pattern and know where to go immediately without thinking about it.

[flowerfairy]

I've actually been feeling the same way. Specifically the level 99 trial, the part with 2 sets of swords flying at the same time gets me almost always. I have trouble checking one side's safe spots, and then checking the other side's safe spots, all before the attack goes off.

And even if these types of mechanics actually have some sort of easy cheesy way to instantly figure out the safe spots... What's the point of it then? What is it actually be challenging you to do after you learn it? Managing your job's uptime, and that's about it I guess. It just looks like more fancier safe spot dancing to me. Is that what passes as a "mechanic" now?

Instead of the game challenging your job and your party's composition, it's challenging your mind's ability to quickly comprehend the pattern. If you can't get it you instantly die.

But, like others said, it's not like the game has anything left for the devs to challenge you on. I think this kind of visual clutter is the epitome of the game's shift in fight design in Shadowbringers. It most definitely became more difficult than Endwalker, but more in the sense of "you have 5 seconds to find the safe spot instead of 10". If this expansion's focal point is encounter design, I was really hoping that they would replace the "find the safe spot" part of encounter design... Otherwise I can't see the difference between here and the last 2 years.

I'd honestly be fine with visual clutter if it was designed in a way that it imitates sporadic damage to random party members. Like a couple of "ow dangit"s that don't immediately stop the raid but recovery's still possible, and encouraged. The closest example I can think of is Barbariccia.

But most of the time visual clutter mechanics instantly kills whoever messed up, then the party gets hit with a body check and the raid has to start all over again. Personally I don't enjoy this "vision" of difficulty. And I think this kind of design is what makes Party Finder less enjoyable for both the person who understands the mechanic and the person who doesn't.

I admit I'm not a fast thinker. Maybe I'm just slow and I have to suck it up. But this isn't the kind of direction I'd enjoy in an RPG with tanks and healers and supports.

[VioletCatastrophe]

Instead of the game challenging your job and your party's composition, it's challenging your mind's ability to quickly comprehend the pattern. If you can't get it you instantly die.

Using the 99 trial as an example:
Start in a corner. Look at one of the sides. Instead of looking from the swords to your column, look from your column to where the swords are. If you see a sword in the column connected to yours, move one tile to the left/right. Repeat this again. If you've moved twice, you are now safe. If you don't see a sword on the first two tries, you are safe. Turn to face the other set of swords and repeat. If you can solve one side in time, then you'll at most get hit by one sword, and not the overlap of two, and you'll live.

Mechanics like this, that focus on parsing visual information, are intended to feel a little overwhelming, but then get easier as your brain works out a pattern to the chaos and you start to notice similarities. I would genuinely say these fights have very little visual clutter if you have the experience to know what you should and should not look at. FFXIV in general could be a lot better at teaching its playerbase, and I think we are seeing the fruits of that here and there. I think I'd respect the people begging for changes a bit more if they more correctly identified that the game was lacking in the way it teaches the player rather than the content itself being bad.

Generally speaking, you aren't going to instantly die to casual content unless you fail it catastrophically. If you stop focusing on doing it perfectly, and instead try to at least not fail it so badly that you'll die, you'll get faster at the bit you can handle, which gives you more time to do the bits you struggle more with.

And for better or worse, this game isn't about individual performance and party composition any more. Testing party composition just enforces a rigid meta that sucks for anyone playing a non-meta job (see: heavensward). Also, even if the devs did something like visual clutter to overwhelm you to induce sporadic party damage... well... that's the final boss of Zot, and it is probably overwhelming as hell to casual players since it even throws myself off as someone who does ultimate raids.

The only other skills to test are dps (requires enrage timers), group coordination (would not work in casual content at all), random flexing (likely problematic in casual content, as this stuff is often the hardest stuff in savage/ultimate), and probably some other stuff. So yeah, the devs don't have many other options for casual content, but IMO you have enough time, you just may need to accept imperfections at first until comfort and familiarity brings with it speed.

[Enjuden]

I'll be honest, even with ultimate experience, things like the teacups always get me for a while. Eventually I just stop caring and either follow other people or take the hit until I must learn it like in Criterion (?) Dungeons.

The 99 trial I have decided to just stand with the tank since the boss doesn't cleave anyway, and it is significantly easier to see where the fire/wind sword will be. The other swords are frankly irrelevant even in EX so long as you do the right mechanic on the fire/wind one anyway. The lines I do not bother with the ones that have yellow circles since they more often than not get me killed. I only follow the line with the donuts since it tends to be not only safer but let me concentrate on the mechanics coming up.

As for if things will remain the same or change, it really depends on the whims of the team who makes the fights. There are times where they are heavily skewed toward pattern recognition like in every criterion, and other times where you just need to know the puzzles solution and solve it properly. From my experience they usually go back and forth between the two on each patch, and only really deviated from this in Shadowbringers where they stuck with one set of things consistently.

[Valence]

Yes, because SE removed everything else.

No more long gearing, no more interesting stats, easy catchup, abundant loot. From that point, the only thing SE can do to increase the game's difficulty is to increase the number and complexity of mechanics.

So would you say that this very specific type of mechanic is harder than other mechanics overall? Because from what I've seen it doesn't seem to affect the whole playerbase equally. I do understand and have always agreed that to make up for the simplification of the battle system they have increased the encounter difficulty over time since ShB, but I'm not sure this is just it.

Sadly with people who have mental learning disabilities like I do (autism), It's hard for me to think fast to save my life in this game, and if it keeps getting harder and harder, I might have to toss my hat in.

I don't like to die often and become a burden on the party that i am in, and I don't enjoy feeling incompetent, that and how that becomes a victim of toxicity in these games when folks have the focus and mental ready state to want to push for finish and set higher expectations on everyone.

I'm not asking to keep making mechanics harder, I'm saying give people more time to think and move.

I probably have some form of neurodivergency as well and what seems to be a problem for me is when a certain amount of overlapping visual cues need to be solved within a fast timeframe. Up to a point, I can do it, until my brain just shuts down past that threshold. I feel that some of those mechanics have reached that point for me, while in contrast, I perform extremely well in longer paced complex mechanics like the ones we see in most of the 4th fights of each savage tier to a point I tend to find those fights part of the easiest of each tier for me.

Some of the puzzles you can memorize instead of solving them completely. Vorlok Swords, for instance, if you look at the swords on the platform and they haven't started glowing, you can run to that spot because the sword spots don't overlap. After that is solving the left or right side from the boss that is being hit by the cleave. Over time you can memorize to stand in front of the boss or behind him, see which side he is going to strike with the cleave, and then look at the platforms to run to a sword that isn't glowing. Three steps of memorization but you're not doing that all at once, like someone trying to solve a puzzle with several different pieces of information in one go.

I know how to solve the Volok swords, just look at one platform that's not glowing, go to a sword on the section that isn't to be cleaved even though the required mental/visual projection already makes me constantly double check everything to leave no doubt behind. The fire/wind swords are more problematic to me due to more overlapping parts to check but there is still tricks to apply that can be worked upon too. The main problem is mechanics as such where there is no real trick, like the moving AoE/Donut lines for instance. Whether I drop my dps rotation or not, I have so far not been making any progress and my brain just shuts down, so I resort to just follow a dorito not to be a hindrance to the group. It's not exactly the best feeling.

It's not the only mechanic as well, Gales for example, was already close to threshold for me, but I can manage. Some others however, found notably in the last boss of criterion Rokkon (rotating shadow clones, the water waves...), I have given up long ago.

What a lot of replies, although probably trying to genuinely be helpful in that thread, seem to think is that people complaining about this somehow miss the "trick" or the "strat", or could do better by deconstructing the mechanic down to its core components. But that's missing the whole point. I know what to do already. I just can't seem to do it. Volok swords are fine and workable, like superchain 1 was. But for example superchain 2 was too much. Rokkon was too much. Statice was almost too much as well. Lala messed with me so hard that it just felt bad to go through every time, but this one I could manage because the solutions were relatively static/reduced. And I'm not speaking about those stupid teacups, I just can't.

I've actually been feeling the same way. Specifically the level 99 trial, the part with 2 sets of swords flying at the same time gets me almost always. I have trouble checking one side's safe spots, and then checking the other side's safe spots, all before the attack goes off.

And even if these types of mechanics actually have some sort of easy cheesy way to instantly figure out the safe spots... What's the point of it then? What is it actually be challenging you to do after you learn it? Managing your job's uptime, and that's about it I guess. It just looks like more fancier safe spot dancing to me. Is that what passes as a "mechanic" now?

Instead of the game challenging your job and your party's composition, it's challenging your mind's ability to quickly comprehend the pattern. If you can't get it you instantly die.

But, like others said, it's not like the game has anything left for the devs to challenge you on. I think this kind of visual clutter is the epitome of the game's shift in fight design in Shadowbringers. It most definitely became more difficult than Endwalker, but more in the sense of "you have 5 seconds to find the safe spot instead of 10". If this expansion's focal point is encounter design, I was really hoping that they would replace the "find the safe spot" part of encounter design... Otherwise I can't see the difference between here and the last 2 years.

I'd honestly be fine with visual clutter if it was designed in a way that it imitates sporadic damage to random party members. Like a couple of "ow dangit"s that don't immediately stop the raid but recovery's still possible, and encouraged. The closest example I can think of is Barbariccia.

But most of the time visual clutter mechanics instantly kills whoever messed up, then the party gets hit with a body check and the raid has to start all over again. Personally I don't enjoy this "vision" of difficulty. And I think this kind of design is what makes Party Finder less enjoyable for both the person who understands the mechanic and the person who doesn't.

I admit I'm not a fast thinker. Maybe I'm just slow and I have to suck it up. But this isn't the kind of direction I'd enjoy in an RPG with tanks and healers and supports.

I do feel that as well. I am a thorough, highly methodical person. I strove in most mechanics until those kinds started showing up. I'm no stranger to savage or even ultimates. But I sadly do feel that the game is going further and further away from what I do enjoy, and loses more and more things I used to love and chooses to embrace things like those visual puzzles that I find very alienating. I do want to keep playing this game though, but lately some of those encounters have felt like absolute curveballs to my brain, and added to the progressive loss of all the good RPG mechanics the game used to have, it sometimes just feels like the devs have decided they want me specifically out of the game. Perhaps that's an unfair thought, but that's a recurrent feeling I've been having.

[Lieri]

I agree this time from dungeon to trial there have been more visual puzzles than previously. Do I enjoy them? Not really. Do I mind them? Not really. But I wish there are more reaction based mechanic (like Queen Bee), you have to move straight away instead of being given 10-15 secs to figure out where to stand before the mechanic resolves, with all the telegraphs being thrown all over the place. They did a very paced and reactionary fight in Barbaricia too and it was a very fun fight for me. We need more of those.

[Valence]

I do definitely work well within barbaricia models, which we have had in the Vanguard's second boss as well. Purely reactive mechanics like that, I don't mind, they're fun and hectic, they don't mess with my brain.

[TDawnstar]

So would you say that this very specific type of mechanic is harder than other mechanics overall? Because from what I've seen it doesn't seem to affect the whole playerbase equally. I do understand and have always agreed that to make up for the simplification of the battle system they have increased the encounter difficulty over time since ShB, but I'm not sure this is just it.

Indeed, it doesn't seem to affect the whole playerbase equally. By removing all gearing and stats progression part, they were forced to make a fight 100% about execution, which require spatial awareness and reflexes that some MMO players may not have. It's like if you put an MMO player to play something like Metal Gear or Monster Hunter. These aren't bad games in any way, but they are different.

[Valence]

Glad we agree.