Counter to Elitism

[yukikaze_yanagi]

IE: Give us stuff to do that requires something other than tank & spank tactics. I'd say they were on the right track in 1.0 as far as battles went. Fights like Garuda, Nael and a couple of others took some true skill to defeat (although BLM still was most popular). From what I can see in ARR, they're going a step backwards by both altering the battle system and changing boss mechanics. I know what we've seen is just alpha, but if your foundation is weak you can't expect to have a sturdy house in the end.

not only it's alpha, it's regular mobs with a starter dungeon. It's obvious you can't expect any strategy. However, i don't think i understand what a non-tank and spank fight would be, aside kiting (which is shit)

[EinSoFZ]

Well put like that, I guess everything could be tank and spank in reality. But to me it's true tank and spank when you can literally just send a tank up to a boss and as long as you have someone healing them you don't need to move, you don't need to consider which skills to use, don't consider positioning or the monsters abilities at all; just jam on your strongest WS or spell and it's a sure win.

So though Garuda is getting tanked and taken down with damage, you can't just run up to it with any class and whack it down provided there's someone to absorb the bulk of damage. I think if SE were to elaborate further with more detailed boss mechanics we could have some fun fights in the game. I get so bored when there's nothing to a fight but to attack it with a meat shield and wait for it to die. Are players really asking for that? From what I can tell SE seems to think so anyway.

So yeah, the entire point of most fights is to tank it while doing damage to defeat it. I understand that's how it all works. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they can include situations which require players to think critically within that framework if that makes any sense.

So yes, everything is "tank and spank" with a variation. "True skill" comes with the people but that "true skill" doesn't matter if people find a way to do it "the easy way" which happens in every MMORPG. Class stacking only happens if it leads to an "easy way" which everyone will follow because no one likes to work for their rewards.

My solution or rather a viable solution many have thought of would be to dissuade players from class stacking by negating any benefit from doing so. Take the easy way out of that scenario. I'd elaborate, but there are tons of ways to accomplish this quite reasonably without actually gimping any job. Why developers want to use stale, played-out mechanics is beyond me. More so beyond me is why people would ask for the same old shit we've always had, citing it being too difficult or time consuming to have otherwise.