Thread: patch 7.2 or next expansion

Originally Posted by Neft

I see a lot of people harping "7.2 is their last chance" "this content is their last chance"

I think the content will be a bit harder (in the sense of the difficulty change between Asphodelos and Abyssos). I think they will be willing to do stuff like "enter a portal to kill adds" or "get transported to a cage" like in Alexander fights (because they mentioned this sort of thing specifically), but nothing widly out of the ordinary from the sort of changes we've seen already like "giant hole in the boss arena that affects uptime", "navigate a maze" or "stop attacking and try to move your character away from the middle or get killed" which were ideas they vetoed in Endwalker to maintain uptime.

Anyone hoping the game will suddenly be what they want in 7.2 is probably going to be disappointed, except the people who wanted another Field Operation.

some of yall need to sit down and think of something that YOU think would be innovating as in a unique never before done idea in X genre or in general (yeah, it's not easy).

I agree that being creative isn't always easy. At a certain point, even if they try to avoid it, you're going to be able to reduce their combat mechanics to basic principles like "AoE circle", "AoE cross", "AoE square", "AoE donut". That's why I say they are the bricks, nuts and bolts of the fight and that it's what they do with those bricks, nuts and bolts that matters.

For example, they could build lots of things with lego bricks. But if you just say "but they are the same old lego bricks", then you're never going to be happy with it.

They have actually been pretty creative across the game overall. For example, anyone that remembers how Copperbell Mines used to be, Copperbell HM, Sunken Temple (which is about to be changed, enjoy it while it lasts), old Sohr Khai. But even when they do something creative in the new dungeons, people farm said dungeon 100 times then, because they've done it hundreds of time, they no longer see it as creative.

so while the devs could literally add whatever they want, they have to question "is this a good idea" "will the players enjoy it"

That's really why a lot of things were removed over time. They ended up just being annoying in practice. For example, many players didn't like being unable to continue their (very inflexible) rotation, so they started to veto all ideas that affected uptime in Endwalker and people weren't happy with that.

Then we have ideas that people want back:

• multiple routes: people pick most efficient
• too many enemy packs: tanks feel pressured to pull them all despite being anxious that it's too many, then they wipe because it's too many (this was very common in ARR dungeons like Snowcloak)
• interruptable casts on enemy packs: 99% of tanks are unaware there are interrupts leaving all the heal burden on the healer
• not telegraphing mechanics: most players don't ever figure out the mechanics
• mechanics explained via status effects: many players (especially those that never played MMOs before) don't know to read status effect tooltips
• mechanics that affect uptime: uptime is affected, rotation flow ruined
• rotations too complicated such that a new player does it all wrong ie. wrong combos or casts.

I do think they need to find the right balance and that they went too far in the direction of making players comfortable. They could do these things:

• 1 route for efficiency, 1 route for challenge (and more reward/exp/maybe special coffer awaits with rare reward), 1 route for ease (for unconfident players)
• The "too many enemies" thing is sort of solve by having a "challenging route".
• the interruptable casts was a good idea on enemies in ShB. Stuff like stunning Morbols was always neat as well.
• I always felt bad that people didn't ever learn the mechanics, but I also enjoyed seeing them die and knowing that they felt the game had more to it than they understood. When these players die, they know there is a gap in their understanding and that's good in that it invites them to try to learn more if they want to.
• A "hard mode" and an "easy mode" is also a good solution. Even if it's a user interface setting that affects how many telegraphs display. People that don't want their hand held can disable the telegraphing and tutorial mode, allowing them to challenge the players that want challenging with more creative ideas.
• Uptime being affected isn't too much of a problem if the rotation's flow can be maintained properly. Umbral Soul, Motifs, Form Shift and Forbidden Meditation are examples.
• Making combos more intuitive and highlight what to press is a good solution but I think they went overboard with it (such as turning Warrior's cone AoE into a circle). If it needs to be this way, they can have multiple pathways or trees or ways to enable an advanced rotation for players that want it to be deeper.

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I think the content will be a bit harder (in the sense of the difficulty change between Asphodelos and Abyssos). I think they will be willing to do stuff like "enter a portal to kill adds" or "get transported to a cage" like in Alexander fights (because they mentioned this sort of thing specifically), but nothing widly out of the ordinary from the sort of changes we've seen already like "giant hole in the boss arena that affects uptime", "navigate a maze" or "stop attacking and try to move your character away from the middle or get killed" which were ideas they vetoed in Endwalker to maintain uptime.

Anyone hoping the game will suddenly be what they want in 7.2 is probably going to be disappointed, except the people who wanted another Field Operation.
I agree that being creative isn't always easy. At a certain point, even if they try to avoid it, you're going to be able to reduce their combat mechanics to basic principles like "AoE circle", "AoE cross", "AoE square", "AoE donut". That's why I say they are the bricks, nuts and bolts of the fight and that it's what they do with those bricks, nuts and bolts that matters.

For example, they could build lots of things with lego bricks. But if you just say "but they are the same old lego bricks", then you're never going to be happy with it.

They have actually been pretty creative across the game overall. For example, anyone that remembers how Copperbell Mines used to be, Copperbell HM, Sunken Temple (which is about to be changed, enjoy it while it lasts), old Sohr Khai. But even when they do something creative in the new dungeons, people farm said dungeon 100 times then, because they've done it hundreds of time, they no longer see it as creative.
That's really why a lot of things were removed over time. They ended up just being annoying in practice. For example, many players didn't like being unable to continue their (very inflexible) rotation, so they started to veto all ideas that affected uptime in Endwalker and people weren't happy with that.

Then we have ideas that people want back:

• multiple routes: people pick most efficient
• too many enemy packs: tanks feel pressured to pull them all despite being anxious that it's too many, then they wipe because it's too many (this was very common in ARR dungeons like Snowcloak)
• interruptable casts on enemy packs: 99% of tanks are unaware there are interrupts leaving all the heal burden on the healer
• not telegraphing mechanics: most players don't ever figure out the mechanics
• mechanics explained via status effects: many players (especially those that never played MMOs before) don't know to read status effect tooltips
• mechanics that affect uptime: uptime is affected, rotation flow ruined
• rotations too complicated such that a new player does it all wrong ie. wrong combos or casts.

Tbf, a lot of these simply face a combination of insufficient balancing effort and the old "critical mass threshold" issue (a la installing public transportation, launching any multiplayer game, etc.).

• If one route is just hugely more reward-per-minute-efficient than others, it will be taken. You can solve that with balancing or randomization if the multiple pathways would still add more longevity than that degree of time spent in a whole different dungeon.
• If there's only one dungeon dangerous enough to kill a tank with a full pull, the average tank will try to full pull it, at least until month X since its release, simply because that's always been safe otherwise. Especially if an exact half would feel weirdly weak compared to a typical full pull.
• If interruptibles are rare, it won't seem worth learning how to deal with them. Look at proficiencies back when Chimera/Coil Turn 2 were typical content compared to now.
• Again, untelegraphed mechanics fail to be learned from only once people forgot how to do so. Though admittedly "too short to dodge anyways" indicators still provide a much happier middle ground.
• Tbf, those are crap, especially for controller users, and deserve to stay dead. Happier medium: subtle pop-up messages nonetheless immediately readable without needing any mouse/scroll-over.
• Uptime losses wouldn't feel ruinous if rotations were a bit more modular. (See the differences between the ppgcd penalty of a restarted combo between ARR and now.) That said, forced uptime loss generally just means less engagement unless one is at least sprinting full-tilt at something outside of gap-closer range; difficulty to maintain it, on the other hand, usually feels great.
• That's mostly on the player, as there is ample time to learn a sensible rotation that will garner some 97+% of optimal throughput (the issues really just coming down to awareness, rather than initial knowledge gap over less intuitive but memorizable matters). Though, the support systems in this game are pretty terrible -- clunky out-of-the-way side-content (HoN), obsolete side-content (Guildhests), or nothing.