How games can have less scripted encounters

[KisaiTenshi]

The situation is getting outta control when they revamped all the old content to promote Trust system--by literally removing *all* mechanics that their scripted bots can't handle. Now every instance is pull stuff——boss(stack spread stack)——pull more stuff, repeat.
Yeah the Trust mode is helpful but do they really need to destroy the already limited "fun" plays they designed?

Technically, they made all the old content harder, but more predictable. Because if you play the old content with trusts (or squads) it will take longer to do than with a group of BiS geared players. That said, what they in effect did was make two versions of every dungeon. There is the "play with other players" version which is easier, and the "play with NPC's" which is harder because the NPC script runs in lock step with the fight.


I'll always be an advocate to not let RNG decide game mechanics, only values. If the game does the equivalent of a d20 roll, and keeps rolling 1's, then it should STILL be doing the mechanic , just at a weak (Eg miss) value. Where as if it rolls a crit three times, then yes, there is a good possibility of wiping to that mechanic if the healer doesn't immediately heal right after each hit.

What you don't want is the boss script to look like this:

BossLoopNoRNG()
{
if(myHP = 100%){ RollForFunction(5)}
if(myHP < 100% && myHP >50%){ RollForFunction(4)}
if(myHP < 50% && myHP >25%){ RollForFunction(3)}
if(myHP < 25% && myHP >0%){ RollForFunction(2)}
if(PartyHasNoHealers){RollForFunction(1)}
}

BossLoopIsRNG()
{
if(myHP = 100%){ RollForFunction(5)}
RollForFunction(Math.Random(5)* (5 - 2) + 2)
if(PartyHasNoHealers){RollForFunction(1)}
}


RollForFunction(n)
{
switch(n)
5:
DoAOE()
4:
DoTankBuster()
3:
DoKnockback()
2:
DoBleed()
break
1:
DoEnrage()
default:
AutoAttack()

return()
}

In English, "BossLoopIsRNG" is basically picking a number between 2 and 5 after the initial opening AOE. Which is Bleed, Knockback, Tankbuster. And it's just picking one of those as the START of the loop. The switch statement automatically continues to the next step and then drops out before the Enrage.

This would be fine, except that it's only skipping a step at random, rather than shuffling the deck when it gets to the end.

Realistically, you want the entire phase to go in order, but you want the "deck shuffled". so that you see ALL the steps, and it repeats in the same order until it gets to the next phase. If you fail, and restart the fight, it will re-shuffle the deck again.

But it doesn't "pick steps" to do at random like the code above, as all it does is make it hard to learn.

If a boss has four phases, then you should expect the same pattern until the end of the phase.

But again, as I've said, you do not want "just random" for boss fights, because that instead makes the fight undeterministic. You can't "do the fight correctly" at all, you can only brute force your way through it.