this game relies too much on instant death attacks to make endgame harder

[Balaur]

Yes... that's it. As a customer, you are OBLIGATED to come up with an alternative for anything you are unhappy with. Despite not being developers, we are tasked with improving the game from a design perspective. get out of here with that. I absolutely hate those "Can you come up with something better" comments. Last I checked, the OP is not getting paid to do so.

Working customer service foir the last 15 years, I can tell you that there is precious little a service provider can do to an upset customer when a customer cannot or refuses to qualify his complaint. When a customer complains that thing X is a problem, the very first thought is "why is that a problem?" followed by "how can we make this better?"

Without these questions, it is nigh impossible to formulate a solution to the customer's complaint. This is usually why stores just give customer's their money back, provide coupons, etc. It is the only thing they can think of when the customer refuses or cannot respond to the queries about improving anything. And unfortunately, even if the customer would have a solution to the issue, it runs counter to the service provider's interests.

Old man walks into a store, and spies an endcap of canned goods, and complains that the canned goods are problematic. He does not say why. Perhaps he perceives the arrangement precarious? But without further information, the store cannot respond adequately to the old man's complaint, and so attempts to mollify him through either direct questioning, deflection via conversation, or, more likely, by throwing a little extra money at him.

The design of a store's endcap, the arrangement of cans on a shelf, is often designed outside the store, and in this there lies the real difficulty when dealing with complaints like the OP's: The mechanic is working as intended, and to solve the problem involved in prolonged battles. To prevent the content from being merely tedious and repetitive, as in the same sequence of Tetris blocks falling at the same speed for 20 minutes, the content involves mechanics that force responsiveness in a variety of ways and with the requirement of "deal with it or die."

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that this system has worked in MMORPGs for nearly two decades, and attempts to deviate from this require a distinct combat system, such as Monster Hunter's, in which the various moves against you are merely strong, but force player skill to higher ends. The preference of the community also tends to be towards a system for party play that forces these mechanics to the sidelines, and as such that "true action combat" must be mitigated.

The holy trinity is at fault here, but this is the preferred method by which MMO players wish to play (GW2 started this way despite arguing against it, but then devolved into all DPS, negating many weapon sets in typical combat), and that means you need aggro tables, ways of dealing with aggro, and ways to manage damage. This forces monsters to be defensive against this, and thus extending combat while making things fairly hectic for the player(s). Hence, instant death mechanics, which makes the game "exciting." Every MMO has them, even the ones with "true action combat."

So, I reiterate: To state that there is a problem, one must find evidence that there is a problem, rather than as with the OP that one person has A problem with a system. To have a problem, if there is one, one must have a solution. You can work at this from another angle: If there is a way to build a better mousetrap, in this manner, than one can say that the previous version is not as good, and the "problem" is one of perspective rather than true error. But I say that the error lies in the expectation of the player, either for not correctly describing his issue, or with what, precisely, there is a "problem" with.

[Rydin]

snip

Your analogy is flawed. The OP is commenting on the product itself, not how it is arranged in the store (which would be very trivial to take issue with)

Its more like eating at a restaurant, taking one bite and saying "This food tastes awful." Then you abruptly leave the restaurant.
At no point are you obligated to go into detail about how the food specifically tastes. You aren't required to fill out an exit questionnaire. Your noted disapproval is enough.

[Balaur]

Your analogy is flawed. The OP is commenting on the product itself, not how it is arranged in the store (which would be very trivial to take issue with)

Its more like eating at a restaurant, taking one bite and saying "This food tastes awful." Then you abruptly leave the restaurant.
At no point are you obligated to go into detail about how the food specifically tastes. You aren't required to fill out an exit questionnaire. Your noted disapproval is enough.

I didn't describe what the old man had an issue with, or did you miss that? My analogy was only that he HAD an issue, and that there was no attempt on his part to even reason out the problem in its context, or provide one.

[Lacerta]

Nothing in this game reacts to the player at all. ALL bosses are scripted. The only reactive thing they do is trigger phases based on their HP. This game has a lot going for it, but enemy AI is at the very bottom of the list. "What else can they do in an MMO"

I can't believe it took someone this long to mention how poor the mob AI is. I mean, seriously, this guy is 100% right in saying the enemy AI has no reactiveness.

Why would a boss just let me buff up my party with stoneskin and regen effectively nullifying his next uber attack? Where's Dispell, that Final Fantasy staple? Why can't bosses change targets to pick off lower HP players? Why can't bosses react to whatever skills you use? Why can't a boss try to mitigate your next attack?

I mean, the flaws with the enemy AI is long; it needs work. At the minute, seemingly, mob's react solely to their HP rate, but where's the reaction based on: debuffs, buffs, the amount of people DPSing it, the amount of slaves/adds it has, when certain skills are used, if a player is close/long range, direction of attack, etc. and that can apply for the mob's allies as well. Ever play XII with those annoying-ass bunnies in the Giza Plains who went around protecting other mobs? Why not here? :<

But to OP: I would say the insta-death attacks are fine and not actually a problem but they appear overused due to a lack of imagination from the mob AI.

[Alhanelem]

Yes, that is the point. How else are they supposed to make the fights hard?

Not very many bosses in FFXI relied on instant death attacks. Most relied on crippling status effects, or dealing damage really fast to where healers would have a hard time keeping up with it. I think there are plenty of other ways to keep fights challenging without over-using this mechanic. Most any boss in FFXI was hard if you put out-of-control DPS on it- it would make the monster use many more attacks than it would if you acted more carefully. The point is, there can be more variation than this.

I guess the probelm isn't as bad as some Korean MMOs where a mechanic I see a lot is damage reflection- the monster puts a buff on itself with almost no warning and if anyone hits it during this time, they die.

[Malix]

From this thread i gather that the OP wants to makes more mistakes in endgame.

[Churchill]

If this topic was about cheap mechanics like Hate Resets, then yeah.

Instead it's about things that you can easily avoid, so it's a standard Analhelm topic.

[Rydin]

If this topic was about cheap mechanics like Hate Resets, then yeah.

Instead it's about things that you can easily avoid, so it's a standard Analhelm topic.

That's kind of true... Nevermind the insta-death, I think the mechanics are cheap and unimaginative overall

[Alhanelem]

If this topic was about cheap mechanics like Hate Resets, then yeah.

Instead it's about things that you can easily avoid, so it's a standard Analhelm topic.

I'm offended at your comment. There is no standard ALHANelem topic, and if you keep calling me analhelm I will not hesitate to report for harassment. Fortunately for me, nobody else cares about your feud with me.

I rarely start topics. There's nothing "standard" about this. I pose a reasonable, legitimate conversation and the best you can do is hate on me for it?

IF you want to expand the topic to other overused/cheap mechanics, feel free. Just don't attack me for discussing what is, in my opinion, one of them.

[Roaman]

I prefer pvp over pve so i don't really care how they make their bosses.... i only hope they made major changes to the pvp because what i saw in some vids of phase 4 pvp was awful