Is the game shifting into fast visual puzzles?

[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.

[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.