Job Complexity and Difficulty

[Mawlzy]

As someone who is bad at PvE, I find the encounter design to be very puzzling, particularly in DT.

I have over 2 hotbars of buttons. Why? I mostly use W, S and mouse because I'm trying not to die. I imagine those of you who are good at PvE use more buttons in a set sequence, over and over and over again. Is this interesting to you? I like playing piano occasionally, but in that instance the result is a pleasing sound.

With fight design that boils down to "inflict damage, move somewhere to avoid damage/soak/couple/clap like a seal" you don't need all these buttons, particularly when you're struggling to find the good spot on the floor. The fight would be no more nor less interesting if all you had was one damage button along with W, S and mouse.

Contrast this with PvP. I use all my buttons! I am in constant motion. Every encounter is different. Sometimes I use my buttons in a different order because of the nature of the engagement and am correct to do so. I enjoy PvP and am quite good at it.

Why can't PvE be more like PvP?

[Aravell]

Why can't PvE be more like PvP?

I think the main difference is that the objective set out by the developers in PvE content is for you to (eventually) win, while that's not the case in PvP.

Because of that, PvE encounters are set to follow a strict script that the players can solve and get their win after, contrasting with that, you cannot "solve" PvP because it involves multiple unpredictable people in the field at once. So PvE encounters are only an interaction between your job kit and the script that the boss follows, whether your buttons are useful or not depends on the script, that's why PvE feels like you can clear it just fine with just movement keys and one attack button. On the other side, PvP can actually give you just 5 buttons and be very engaging because your content is not scripted.

So why can't PvE be more like PvP? Because that would require encounters to be unscripted, and if you take unscripted encounters with the mechanics vomit that the dev team enjoys right now together, you get encounters that can occasionally spit out unsolvable mechanics, which runs counter to the end objective of letting the player win. If you then restrict the randomness so it doesn't cause unsolvable mechanics to happen, you run the risk of creating a solvable script once again.

What some of us have been asking for though, is a return of player interaction in PvE. This makes PvE encounters more random because of the players you match with, without messing too much with the scripts they enjoy writing.

[Mawlzy]

So why can't PvE be more like PvP? Because that would require encounters to be unscripted, and if you take unscripted encounters with the mechanics vomit that the dev team enjoys right now together, you get encounters that can occasionally spit out unsolvable mechanics, which runs counter to the end objective of letting the player win. If you then restrict the randomness so it doesn't cause unsolvable mechanics to happen, you run the risk of creating a solvable script once again.

Isn't there a middle ground where there is a baseline "script," but the ability of players to interact with the boss beyond chip damage impacts how the fight plays out?

Like tanking in many of the new boss fights seems unnecessarily limited. Point the boss north. Okay. Oh look it's now jumping across the stage! And things from beyond the arena are throwing rocks at me.

There's no reason in principle why we could not stun, silence, interrupt, heavy, knock back, blind, bind, poison, yeet... the boss. Similarly for anything appearing at the side of the arena. Strikes me as far more interesting and would justify having 30 buttons.

[Kohashi]

As someone who is bad at PvE, I find the encounter design to be very puzzling, particularly in DT.

I have over 2 hotbars of buttons. Why? I mostly use W, S and mouse because I'm trying not to die. I imagine those of you who are good at PvE use more buttons in a set sequence, over and over and over again. Is this interesting to you? I like playing piano occasionally, but in that instance the result is a pleasing sound.

With fight design that boils down to "inflict damage, move somewhere to avoid damage/soak/couple/clap like a seal" you don't need all these buttons, particularly when you're struggling to find the good spot on the floor. The fight would be no more nor less interesting if all you had was one damage button along with W, S and mouse.

Contrast this with PvP. I use all my buttons! I am in constant motion. Every encounter is different. Sometimes I use my buttons in a different order because of the nature of the engagement and am correct to do so. I enjoy PvP and am quite good at it.

Why can't PvE be more like PvP?

You have 2 bars? Lucky you, I got 3 in the least, and most are around 4 full bars that I consistently use in a complete rotation. There is no such thing as pressing 1 button and then trying to find the safe spot. If I do that, the only safe spot that I will find is on the floor.



Also, I am all for the reduction of the button bloat. Having 4 full bars of skills it's pretty stupid.