Thread: Almost into 7.3, what you think about the *improved* encounter design?

Originally Posted by Raikai

Of course, the combat approaches are vastly different, but the idea is still there: In WoW, there's no such thing as a "2min meta" (well, not counting a Bloodlust window, but that's usually in the opener when somebody brings the buff), and classes there only have inwards mechanics.

Yes and no. That window isn't on a 2-minute timer and is more subtle, but there is a "pot(ion) window" (5 min), and maximizing synergy between short-lived (e.g., not 1+ minute) external buffs and skills exploiting them have been an important factor for so long as they've been offered -- even if that isn't often or in large numbers. Power Infusion is most noticeable among them today, creating balancing concerns for specs that synergize especially well with its added haste, but tanks regularly play around what external defensive buffs certain healers can offer, Innervation was also a necessity for many fights in the past, Unholy DKs buffed by Augmentation Evokers put a new ceiling on "broken", and even Night Fae Paladins and Priests in Shadowlands were generally selective about their party so they could max out their buffs.

Arguably, so long as tanks don't have stupidly excessive levels of Threat/Enmity generation and DPS have at-cost threat reduction available to them, the same is true of tanking. As long as there are worthwhile greeding opportunities but healers wouldn't necessarily have every GCD free for damage even when dealing with said greed, the same is true of healing. As long as there are DPS checks that are tight enough (in turn requiring a tight enough min to max ilvl range for the content), getting through consecutive precise DPS checks can even mean that your damage CDs are not just your own but must be leveraged as to minimize both excess and holding among those of your coDPS.

It's a matter of interconnectedness and fine tuning that has been lessened or lost in both games, often for its annoyance when mishandled being more frequent and palpable than its joys when well-handled, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, and I'd love to see some more consideration of such here.

In short, it is possible to make the jobs work without a collective burst window happening every 2 minutes if they had interesting inwards mechanics.

Certainly, and leaving even a few externalizable buffs at shuffled times (say, 30, 40, 60, 90, 120, 180) wouldn't even limit that despite giving a modest bit more min-max consideration for holding CDs (now that they're no longer naturally synced).

That said, the reason XIV lacks most analogous gameplay is simply because of XIV's "combo" system -- in essence, apart from some small instances of consolidation, the optimal way to reduce the number of choices per button (i.e., to maximize button bloat / have the smallest depth of gameplay per button-count).

While in Stormblood in earlier we were at least occasionally allowed some rotational variance surrounding the time left before the target would die, typal modifiers (can drop Dragon Kick in a Demolish string and only lose a total of 22 potency despite having gained 90 effective potency off an extra Bootshine, since only Demolish's initial/direct damage is modified), and more significant %recast reduction per gear's worth of secondary stat such that we could actually ramp up SkS enough to get in, say, an extra Full Thrust combo per Chaos Thrust combo (objectively worse, but still an option), and DoT timers not quite being auto-synced to rotation meant adjusting other factors to neither lose a tick nor waste a tick... for the most part, combos have always meant that the gameplay ceiling could never offer quite as much as a WoW spec could (even if the result might nonetheless happen into a more cohesive, nuanced, and/or rewarding package).

And for the rest, it mostly comes down to intentional simplification since the end of Heavensward. See, for example, how the likes of Bard was pushed from 57% (WB, VB, SS, level 50) to 43% (+ IJ, level 60) to 25% (longer durations, Stormblood) to 17% (no Straight Shot buff), to eventually EW+'s 6% rotational non-filler casts before Apex Arrow/Burst Arrow (or 13.8% non-filler with an AA/BA per minute). See how the loss of Fracture in Stormblood reduced the rotational strings available to Monk, or how Greased Lighting IV actually made Greased Lightning a far less interesting resource in Shadowbringers.

Now, to be clear, I don't particularly miss Straight Shot being a buff we needed to rotate in, and I was actually pretty happy with Endwalker Monk (it stumbled upon something pretty great, probably the best we'd had since late Stormblood), but there's no doubt that there's a fairly sledgehammer approach to placating what they see as what players will complain about -- an approach that doesn't typically do well, either, with imagining what interesting little flows and stochastics could take a very simple APL as found on Icyveins into an interesting spec/job design.

But sure, if we get rid of the fixation on systems that exist largely just to reduce thought-per-button and can actually imagine out in-the-moment play and purposely offer that more depth that can be held in a 2-minute job guide, yeah, we could definitely see some better job gameplay here on XIV, too. (How likely those conditions are to be reached, though...)

The improved encounter design just feels like it's faster with more mechanics thrown at you for the hell of it with more splashy special effects. As someone with memory issues and slow response times, it basically just has me bouncing all around and trying not to die while having zero clue with what is going on.

My inside Granny misses the time when you had to use your brain to solve mechanics in dungeons/raids and not just being dancing as quick as possible. :/ (playing since HW release)
I miss the old classes battle design too.

Honestly I don’t even think current savage is particularly great especially on casters. It’s better than EW but that’s a damn low bar

If the answer to “we can’t figure out any other way to make mechanics than having you constantly run around” is “strip casts from casters” then it’s pretty big failure in my eyes. Healers are still boring as well and tanks are still playing baby mode melee

The whole “best tier ever” still feels super melee centric