Best Of
Re: Loot System Changes
George_Black wrote: »Lol, competing against your own group?
That sounds like behaviour typically found in lobby based instanced raiding mmos, in which you queue with ppl you will never play with again.
Here is how the group/guild would deal with it:
We loot a 40 Lv Bow, we have 3 archers, one is 35 one is 45 one is 40.
The 45 would get it to face harder mobs than the 40 guy
or
The Lv40 guy is more active and would make better use of it
or a formal points based guild system (which I dont care for too much) and give it to the guy who is supposed to get it.
Anyway the topic bores me. Suit yourself. When giving feedback dont work towards the opposite direction of what the game tries to achieve.
(And dont mention my opposition to the class system. It's not the same)
So you’re always going to be playing in a full group or raid full of people you know and trust? Never going to join up with randoms while your friends / guildies aren’t on? This goes completely against the direction of every MMO ever made. Guilds are literally made up of strangers who enjoyed playing with one another.
Also, knowing the way your imaginary guild would handle loot, why would I ever join a group if I know I’m not in a position to get loot whether it’s guild points or level based? I would see that you already have a ranger with more guild points or higher level and automatically opt-out and same goes for if I’m on a class that shares loot with a similar class in your group. With 50+ class combinations, that’s a lot of people not joining you!
Some advice for you - when you post on opinion based forums where people are giving feedback on how to better a system, don’t be toxic and just tell people they’re wrong, rather you should provide a helpful or productive opinion otherwise don’t post on it at all.
Kleptix
4
Re: What are people's node & biome preferences?
I personally love a Rustic house in a snowy forest/mountains. so I will likely live somewhere in Sujoma or the Frostgrave Fells.
node I'm not too fussed about. whatever place I like the look of and find has convenient access to the things I want.
node I'm not too fussed about. whatever place I like the look of and find has convenient access to the things I want.
Kyskei
1
Localized Indoor Chat & LoS Emoting + Outdoor 'Earshot' Chat; The "Murmur Sphere"
1. I propose localized chat channels inside of dwellings and taverns, etc, relying on the concept of ear-shot--and emote channels in each building as well (relying on Line of Sight), so as to cut down RP spam.
It makes sense that buildings should also serve for privacy--this makes them more immersive, and therefore more playable; which I also feel would bolster the greater community--as buildings of all varieties will play an important, core role in Ashes of Creation.
2. I propose a 'murmur sphere' which functions on a smaller in-range/ out-of-range mechanic than public 'say' or 'speak.
I feel this would add another layer of immersion to the in-game chat as well as serving some very practical purposes in, say, a siege with two allies you just met--cornered, quickly needing to give or receive orders without announcing yourself... .
Imagine the depth of drama this would add?
"DestinyAwry murmurs: inc 2 melee 3 casters, get in position"
*a few seconds later*
*5 come up against 3, but the 3 have the elements of surprise and co-operation*
As a moderate-to-light RPer--and an avid PvPer--I strongly feel these two things together would greatly improve RP and non-RP server-relations; and potentially serve to make the game more fluid, more community-oriented, and much more immersive.
P.S. I can see the localized chat-channels being hard to code, but I do think the murmur sphere would be quite easy to implement without causing any major headaches. But: I'm not the literal god of game development.
It makes sense that buildings should also serve for privacy--this makes them more immersive, and therefore more playable; which I also feel would bolster the greater community--as buildings of all varieties will play an important, core role in Ashes of Creation.
2. I propose a 'murmur sphere' which functions on a smaller in-range/ out-of-range mechanic than public 'say' or 'speak.
I feel this would add another layer of immersion to the in-game chat as well as serving some very practical purposes in, say, a siege with two allies you just met--cornered, quickly needing to give or receive orders without announcing yourself... .
Imagine the depth of drama this would add?
"DestinyAwry murmurs: inc 2 melee 3 casters, get in position"
*a few seconds later*
*5 come up against 3, but the 3 have the elements of surprise and co-operation*
As a moderate-to-light RPer--and an avid PvPer--I strongly feel these two things together would greatly improve RP and non-RP server-relations; and potentially serve to make the game more fluid, more community-oriented, and much more immersive.
P.S. I can see the localized chat-channels being hard to code, but I do think the murmur sphere would be quite easy to implement without causing any major headaches. But: I'm not the literal god of game development.
Re: When I craft an item, will my name be on it, forever?
I dont know if you can inspect other players in Ashes, but I suspect you will be able to.
But then you can look at their gear, and read the description and see the name of the crafter of that bow, sword or armor, or who tamed his or her´s mount and so on.
Just a thought, perhaps its already answered somewhere, but I wanted to ask anyway
Thanks guys for reading.
The developers believe that inspecting gear to obtain an exact equipment list or gear score may lead to "unwelcome behavior".[8]
Re: When I craft an item, will my name be on it, forever?
My expectation is that your name will be on items forever. We know the name will be on items at least, I have no reason to assume this will be temporary.
Games have been doing this for almost 20 years (that I know of), so it isn't some great new idea.
Games have been doing this for almost 20 years (that I know of), so it isn't some great new idea.
Noaani
1
Re: Dragon Raid Boss
From interviews with the PI folks there was not a dry run of this fight.
Keep in mind they are still not optimized and Steven’s god mode doesn’t help show the difficulty. I get they want to show a successful raid Boss fight, but a first attempt should be a wipe IMHO. Otherwise it gives the impression it’s too easy or boring.
Keep in mind they are still not optimized and Steven’s god mode doesn’t help show the difficulty. I get they want to show a successful raid Boss fight, but a first attempt should be a wipe IMHO. Otherwise it gives the impression it’s too easy or boring.
Re: Menacing Melody is WAY too over-powered
When compared to the other Melodies? 20% move, 1% magic power mana regen, life steal, or the healing buff HoT? +10% damage to all enemies doesn't seem underpowered imo. Especially when you can just bring another dps in a Bard's stead. What if your party is well geared or good players and just doesn't need much in the way of healing? Bard is kinda lost there.
But again, making it so you only need a single Bard for a Raid Boss debuff really diminishes the need for multiple bards in a raid imo. Making it a party wide buff like the other Melodies are doesn't make Bards necessary in each party, but still increases their usefulness beyond a single bard in a raid.
But again, making it so you only need a single Bard for a Raid Boss debuff really diminishes the need for multiple bards in a raid imo. Making it a party wide buff like the other Melodies are doesn't make Bards necessary in each party, but still increases their usefulness beyond a single bard in a raid.
Y_on
1
Re: Menacing Melody is WAY too over-powered
See, the thing with this is that it is overpowered in some situations, and underpowered in others.
It isn't all that useful if you are solo or in a small group. You realistically need 12 or more people to make it worthwhile.
The fact that there are many times where it is underpowered, and some times where it is overpowered result in it being basically balanced.
Additionally, raid encounters will be designed with the notion that this ability will be present. Group encounters do not need to be.
It isn't all that useful if you are solo or in a small group. You realistically need 12 or more people to make it worthwhile.
The fact that there are many times where it is underpowered, and some times where it is overpowered result in it being basically balanced.
Additionally, raid encounters will be designed with the notion that this ability will be present. Group encounters do not need to be.
Noaani
2
Let's TheoryRaid #5 - Tiamat (FFXI) vs FireBrand
This post is not feedback. This post is not even discussion of the Firebrand showcase. Please don't expect a direct discussion of FireBrand in the way you'd think of it. If you have feedback on FireBrand showcase, please give it here.
This post is mainly a continuation/rethink of the discussion here, as development evolves and the vision for Ashes becomes clearer (or muddier, depending on which type of faith you have). Reading that post is not required, as most of what was discussed in it doesn't come up in the FireBrand showcase.
There's not much to understand about Tiamat. In terms of her mechanics, she doesn't come too close to Firebrand, and the primary status effects she delivers don't match up to the inconvenience of Jormungand, particularly if you don't know FFXI as a game that well.
Today I'm just ranting about why the base mechanics of FF make Tiamat require more visible/understandable coordination than Firebrand for me. It's not really critique, because we haven't seen Ashes Summoner yet, and FF bosses change a lot when your Summoner is there, so there will be discussion of that. It's not really feedback, because I'm not asking for FireBrand to be different. It's just ranting. If the devs/Community Team judge this to be 'feedback', into the thread it goes, I assume.
First, a random Tiamat Video. This video is nearly no help whatsoever other than showing the battle location.
As you'd expect from this type of slower, older MMO, one of two things is always happening when it comes to bosses, because for the most part this is how MMOs work(ed).
Either the boss is forcing you to 'not stand in the fire'/threatening to oneshot you... or your positioning doesn't matter in the moment-to-moment gameplay until something happens to disrupt the tank, and the teamwork is based on understanding a constantly changing status.
Tiamat is mostly the second, positioning is 'trivialized' immediately by moving away from all the naturally-spawning things that could act as Adds, and then standing by a foreleg. I chose this comparison instead of Ouryu who can actually just summon Adds, because FireBrand's adds are just a DPS/position check whereas Ouryu's are tactical, so the comparison would be unfair.
Old MMOs: Raiding is Reading?
This certainly isn't true consistently, but the better your tank is, the more this is only solved/expanded on by 'don't stand in the Fire', in the old days. Bosses didn't have verticality to worry about much. They didn't often have a lot of motion because characters weren't allowed to have a lot of motion, and you needed the 'tell' of the boss' facing and movement direction to tell you who was in danger.
Other Old MMOs: Raiding is RedZones?
The other side. this is only solved by effects that you have to deal with, since RedZones that do damage and not effects are normally beaten by just superhealing and are really bottable, because they're entirely intended to make the challenge of the fight 'Don't Stand In The Fire' rather than 'sometimes you cannot get out of the fire in time or it's even worth being in the fire, someone else has your back relative to the problem'. The RedZone just replaces the 'tell' of the boss' facing and movement. You can look at the boss and its animations less, and just make sure you don't stand in the red.
Both of the above are exaggerations, but let's now consider FireBrand, our temporary 2024 MMO 'mascot boss'.
Even after a rewatch, FireBrand is half-and-half yet neither, and this is why it doesn't look like raiding (I guess I have to say 'to me', but the general response has been at least 'this is underwhelming' and I'm just doing my best to give information on why I experience that, without getting into the specifics of FireBrand or Ashes raiding).
Roles In A Tiamat Fight
First off, note that FFXI 'raids' are only 18 man, and parties are only 6, and some can reasonably lowman this fight even before the level cap raise that trivialized it. One of the important aspects of doing so is your Summoner.
The roles are fairly obvious for a serious attempt from people who haven't mastered it yet:
It's a very theoretically simple fight. Tiamat will blast you with fire, or bite you, or if you make her mad from anywhere in tail range, half kill you or worse, and everyone behind her. She has a wingflap that leaves the Plague status which drains your MP and TP gauge, just consider it to be slowing people down and lowering their burst damage options unless removed.
Sometimes she bites harder for a bit. Sometimes she Terrors the Tank and freezes their actions but otherwise no change, so if they don't get hate Reset, you still just keep doing the same thing.
So why does this require any meaningful coordination at all? TP Gauge. And this isn't a post about the wonders of the TP System. Tiamat is simple as soon as you remove it. But the cadence of everything that is happening is important, and here's where the difference from FireBrand comes through:
Barring Sleep (a viable strategy) and repeated Stuns (stun's natural recast timer in FF is 45s), Tiamat is always doing something and there is always a chance that you really need to care and plan a reaction immediately.
And the reaction is not as consistently simple as 'press button to counter' (or sometimes your button is very obviously on CD).
This is part of the 'benefit' of smaller raid numbers and the way FF handles the ability to affect a mob. As a whole concept it can't be said if it is good or bad for any given game, but limiting people who can affect a mob means you don't have to give it as much resistance to CC, particularly not softer ones. 40 man raids change the boss challenge from 'CC correctly and have alternate options for when you can't CC' to 'you aren't allowed to CC this that way/that often' and then 'Here comes the Fire/RedZone'.
When you remove the CC option, you reduce the amount of teamwork possible, but some games, Ashes included, can easily restore some of it by making the CC require more coordination instead.
Roles in a FireBrand fight:
At least one Tank to reduce the impact of consistent physical damage, probably with Fire Resistance. Stream implied the desire for a second (presumably if the main tank needs to Active Block any mechanics and runs out of Stamina by doing so)
Some DPS, probably as many as the CC-control options-before-resistance-kicks-in allows.
One Healer per Party(?), to push the HP bars back up (at the moment this is basically all Ashes Clerics do for this fight, even cleanse here is to avoid Burning)
One Bard per Party, to support the team, probably.
The difference is simply that because FireBrand is 'just' a mobile 'Don't Stand In The Fire', the main focus for any DPS should be 'being a character that can DPS without being in the fire'. Whether that's by being ranged, or having incredible awareness and evasion of mechanics (being ranged is probably easier, but not braindead). Because FireBrand's larger attacks are also cinematic/slow, and work primarily because players are also slow, ranged DPS is the superior option until more Synergies are seen.
This leaves no obvious intent for Summoners, but they're the flex role, so from that perspective, let's think about what the flexibility they're offering to this is...
At the beginning, we can see that FireBrand's attacks do decent damage in an AoE.but the backline don't take any of this damage, obviously. Burning is applied, though. The Cleric's role is clear. Heal. The Tank's role remains clear. Control FireBrand's movement. The Summoner could join the 'ranged DPS' by sending a summon in.
The Tank's role doesn't help as much when the AoE 'summon magma/burning circles' happens, so they would have to somehow contribute to a synergy. The priority is not synergy related yet, though, it's as advertised, "don't stand in the fire". Fortunately, FireBrand does have the ability to 'randomly' do aerial flamebreath strafe right after such a summon of Burning Circles.
This Aerial Flamebreath has a huge tell. Even if no one gets out of the way, a Cleric's obvious choice is to face wherever the attack is going, and anyone still caught in it gets healed. It also covers a large but predictable area, and takes a long time. The amount of time FireBrand takes just to get back into a position to be any threat to anyone, is more than enough time to regenerate some mana, get everyone healed up, etc. If this attack was an instakill, it would imo honestly still not matter. Even getting time to raise the fallen isn't unlikely.
The massive movement does allow FireBrand to outrange the ranged DPS, but what happens to a summon here? Do they chase after it? Presumably the Summoner keeps the summon(s) close, to apply any benefit or buff that it grants to their party. But a double breath-strafe takes so long that if one were to use a 20s CD heal on reaction to seeing liftoff, to help someone survive the first strafe because they were unable to avoid it, it would be up again by the time FireBrand returned to purposefully dealing damage to anyone. (I feel like Necromancers get the short end of the stick here, with their summons shambling off to try to mindlessly keep up with the dragon)
This delay leaves more than enough time to cleanse, get shielded... personally as a Cleric my response to this move if I trusted my group at all would be /sit.
The seven second expanding AoE with the roar tell, would endanger summons, and maybe even push Ranged DPS back far enough to have to stop doing DPS (spoiler: it does not), but at least Fighters could just leap right over every fire wave after the first to start hitting again.
But from that moment until FireBrand's next meaningful threat can be 20 seconds minimum, precisely because can just do two spectacle moves back to back. I guess if your Bards were CCed this wouldn't just lead to a Shielding Dance as the incoming flames sweep over (six seconds worth of that). That's about the same casting time as Tiamat's Firaga III, which is good, I guess, but it does 460+(x3 if you don't evade or roll) damage and doesn't even seem to leave burning on anyone. Spectacle moves are fine, but roles matter.
The roles shown here as a result of FireBrand's design are 'people who shoot it', 'people who stand in front of it', 'people who heal the people standing in front of it', and 'people who stand near the people shooting it' (because when FireBrand repositions to use Anti-Zerg Flamethrower, the Bard's best option is not to move and just shielding dance.
Others spend more time chasing after movement than people do against Nouver in BDO, and I say this as someone who can keep up with Nouver's movement on my character. The hardest part of this seemed to be 'finding who needed to be healed or raised'. Later on in the fight, we do actually get a confirmation that it is possible to shoot FireBrand from outside even Concentric Flame Rings range.
We do see Bucky fall at some point, but the reason for this is seemingly entirely random, a flame puddle appearing... underwater, right beneath his feet, after AZ Flamethrower. But he is redeemed! By his effortless 'casually walk forward into the burnt area before the next explosion' in Concentric Flame Rings. As everyone should. It prevents damage! Hopefully there will be a way to control summons precisely enough to have them do it too.
FireBrand not only does not require synergy, it neither truly encourages nor rewards it. There is nothing to 'diminish the effect of', there's very little ability to keep up with its movement or options, so there can't be any actualized 'challenge' there. It's a situation of the reverse of my pet peeve in gaming, it's a boss that mostly limits what players are usefully able to do (assuming their aim is to engage it).
As with Tumok, I have no issue with this boss existing. There is a benefit in an MMO to have 40 people get together and do their best to avoid standing in fire or randomly having the ground explode under them while a few Clerics and Bards try to keep them standing. Further if PvP is happening, as mentioned in another TheoryRaid. As a 'source of random damage in a PvP arena' FireBrand does a good job, and it is adapted well to be the tactical focal point of this for the occasional Tank, whether that's 'momentarily tanking it' or 'pulling an enemy into it'.
I'm interested to see the expansion of roles that occurs when this fight evolves through the addition of PvP and becomes what one comes to this subgenre of MMO for. FireBrand does not need to be more, just as Tiamat does not need to be more. Tiamat's value cannot be seen without understanding the TP Gauge's effect on it, nor can FireBrand's value is hard to see without understanding the PvP environment's effect on it.
If there is a part of this that I consider to even approach valid feedback that matters toward the potential goals of the designers, it is probably this:
"The reason this was boring for me to watch and I expect would be doubly boring for me to play, is simply that my only role here is to determine who took damage and hit the anti-damage button', and the pace of the fight would likely be so lenient on my cooldowns that I would never be truly unable to do that without interference."
I want to see this again, with but with opposition. Maybe in A2 I will be part of that opposition.
Now that I think about it (because I never really play games with the 'Raid Frame'), is this normally 'hard' because you lose the ability to just F1-F6 your own party? Also I hope it's clear that this sort of thing (without opposition) is super bottable... honestly moreso because of the raid frame.
That said, I congratulate Intrepid Studios on their first(?) Burning Circle Notorious Monster.
This post is mainly a continuation/rethink of the discussion here, as development evolves and the vision for Ashes becomes clearer (or muddier, depending on which type of faith you have). Reading that post is not required, as most of what was discussed in it doesn't come up in the FireBrand showcase.
There's not much to understand about Tiamat. In terms of her mechanics, she doesn't come too close to Firebrand, and the primary status effects she delivers don't match up to the inconvenience of Jormungand, particularly if you don't know FFXI as a game that well.
Today I'm just ranting about why the base mechanics of FF make Tiamat require more visible/understandable coordination than Firebrand for me. It's not really critique, because we haven't seen Ashes Summoner yet, and FF bosses change a lot when your Summoner is there, so there will be discussion of that. It's not really feedback, because I'm not asking for FireBrand to be different. It's just ranting. If the devs/Community Team judge this to be 'feedback', into the thread it goes, I assume.
First, a random Tiamat Video. This video is nearly no help whatsoever other than showing the battle location.
As you'd expect from this type of slower, older MMO, one of two things is always happening when it comes to bosses, because for the most part this is how MMOs work(ed).
Either the boss is forcing you to 'not stand in the fire'/threatening to oneshot you... or your positioning doesn't matter in the moment-to-moment gameplay until something happens to disrupt the tank, and the teamwork is based on understanding a constantly changing status.
Tiamat is mostly the second, positioning is 'trivialized' immediately by moving away from all the naturally-spawning things that could act as Adds, and then standing by a foreleg. I chose this comparison instead of Ouryu who can actually just summon Adds, because FireBrand's adds are just a DPS/position check whereas Ouryu's are tactical, so the comparison would be unfair.
Old MMOs: Raiding is Reading?
This certainly isn't true consistently, but the better your tank is, the more this is only solved/expanded on by 'don't stand in the Fire', in the old days. Bosses didn't have verticality to worry about much. They didn't often have a lot of motion because characters weren't allowed to have a lot of motion, and you needed the 'tell' of the boss' facing and movement direction to tell you who was in danger.
Other Old MMOs: Raiding is RedZones?
The other side. this is only solved by effects that you have to deal with, since RedZones that do damage and not effects are normally beaten by just superhealing and are really bottable, because they're entirely intended to make the challenge of the fight 'Don't Stand In The Fire' rather than 'sometimes you cannot get out of the fire in time or it's even worth being in the fire, someone else has your back relative to the problem'. The RedZone just replaces the 'tell' of the boss' facing and movement. You can look at the boss and its animations less, and just make sure you don't stand in the red.
Both of the above are exaggerations, but let's now consider FireBrand, our temporary 2024 MMO 'mascot boss'.
Even after a rewatch, FireBrand is half-and-half yet neither, and this is why it doesn't look like raiding (I guess I have to say 'to me', but the general response has been at least 'this is underwhelming' and I'm just doing my best to give information on why I experience that, without getting into the specifics of FireBrand or Ashes raiding).
Roles In A Tiamat Fight
First off, note that FFXI 'raids' are only 18 man, and parties are only 6, and some can reasonably lowman this fight even before the level cap raise that trivialized it. One of the important aspects of doing so is your Summoner.
The roles are fairly obvious for a serious attempt from people who haven't mastered it yet:
A Tank with some innate Fire Resistance gear, Paladins are best but they make you need more DPS from somewhere and you might therefore not bring one for each party even with the Hate Reset, sometimes the other parties will have a Warrior tank so they can act as/bring other DPS too. You usually need two, but specific compositions can manage with a DPS Warrior who has really good timing.
Some DPS, preferably at least one that helps CC-control Tiamat and one that is good at handling Adds because FF does not generally let a Tank survive too well for long periods when the Adds show up. Anyone who is capable of downing the Adds fast enough to actually help the Tank, is 'tanking the Adds' at that point due to the long mob TTK.
At least one Summoner, preferably two (you can't see who is the summoner in the Video but you can see their Garuda summons, glowy light green winged lady). Summoners are the other part of the 'flow control' team, and have among the harder jobs in dragon fights, so I'll bring them up again later.
One Healer per party, because the party AoE heals and Fire Resist buffs aren't targetable outside of it. Usually you don't need more than 3, but if you're lowmanning it, you might still need all 3 even with Paladin(s).
One Bard per party at least, because someone has to keep that mana up and control the flow. I would think some can do it with only two Bards even in a full 3-party alliance, depends on composition, but you're losing out on something if you do.
At least one strong debuffer, these are usually also capable backup healers and 'smoothers', Red Mages unite. In some cases they give up some backup healing ability to act as the CC-Control (in a relatively broken way, but that's not important to this).
At least one strong Ranged DPS. You can bring lots of them and this makes it 'easier' but you don't want to risk the Hate Reset causing everything to get flaky. They can all be in their own party with their own Bard and Healer, a good Bard will manage this well enough. Their lack of CC in this game means they're not the best against Adds, though, and can't easily fill the 'CC-control+DPS' slot unless they're mages, and Mages require mana as well as careful protection.
Some DPS, preferably at least one that helps CC-control Tiamat and one that is good at handling Adds because FF does not generally let a Tank survive too well for long periods when the Adds show up. Anyone who is capable of downing the Adds fast enough to actually help the Tank, is 'tanking the Adds' at that point due to the long mob TTK.
At least one Summoner, preferably two (you can't see who is the summoner in the Video but you can see their Garuda summons, glowy light green winged lady). Summoners are the other part of the 'flow control' team, and have among the harder jobs in dragon fights, so I'll bring them up again later.
One Healer per party, because the party AoE heals and Fire Resist buffs aren't targetable outside of it. Usually you don't need more than 3, but if you're lowmanning it, you might still need all 3 even with Paladin(s).
One Bard per party at least, because someone has to keep that mana up and control the flow. I would think some can do it with only two Bards even in a full 3-party alliance, depends on composition, but you're losing out on something if you do.
At least one strong debuffer, these are usually also capable backup healers and 'smoothers', Red Mages unite. In some cases they give up some backup healing ability to act as the CC-Control (in a relatively broken way, but that's not important to this).
At least one strong Ranged DPS. You can bring lots of them and this makes it 'easier' but you don't want to risk the Hate Reset causing everything to get flaky. They can all be in their own party with their own Bard and Healer, a good Bard will manage this well enough. Their lack of CC in this game means they're not the best against Adds, though, and can't easily fill the 'CC-control+DPS' slot unless they're mages, and Mages require mana as well as careful protection.
It's a very theoretically simple fight. Tiamat will blast you with fire, or bite you, or if you make her mad from anywhere in tail range, half kill you or worse, and everyone behind her. She has a wingflap that leaves the Plague status which drains your MP and TP gauge, just consider it to be slowing people down and lowering their burst damage options unless removed.
Sometimes she bites harder for a bit. Sometimes she Terrors the Tank and freezes their actions but otherwise no change, so if they don't get hate Reset, you still just keep doing the same thing.
So why does this require any meaningful coordination at all? TP Gauge. And this isn't a post about the wonders of the TP System. Tiamat is simple as soon as you remove it. But the cadence of everything that is happening is important, and here's where the difference from FireBrand comes through:
Barring Sleep (a viable strategy) and repeated Stuns (stun's natural recast timer in FF is 45s), Tiamat is always doing something and there is always a chance that you really need to care and plan a reaction immediately.
And the reaction is not as consistently simple as 'press button to counter' (or sometimes your button is very obviously on CD).
This is part of the 'benefit' of smaller raid numbers and the way FF handles the ability to affect a mob. As a whole concept it can't be said if it is good or bad for any given game, but limiting people who can affect a mob means you don't have to give it as much resistance to CC, particularly not softer ones. 40 man raids change the boss challenge from 'CC correctly and have alternate options for when you can't CC' to 'you aren't allowed to CC this that way/that often' and then 'Here comes the Fire/RedZone'.
When you remove the CC option, you reduce the amount of teamwork possible, but some games, Ashes included, can easily restore some of it by making the CC require more coordination instead.
Roles in a FireBrand fight:
At least one Tank to reduce the impact of consistent physical damage, probably with Fire Resistance. Stream implied the desire for a second (presumably if the main tank needs to Active Block any mechanics and runs out of Stamina by doing so)
Some DPS, probably as many as the CC-control options-before-resistance-kicks-in allows.
One Healer per Party(?), to push the HP bars back up (at the moment this is basically all Ashes Clerics do for this fight, even cleanse here is to avoid Burning)
One Bard per Party, to support the team, probably.
The difference is simply that because FireBrand is 'just' a mobile 'Don't Stand In The Fire', the main focus for any DPS should be 'being a character that can DPS without being in the fire'. Whether that's by being ranged, or having incredible awareness and evasion of mechanics (being ranged is probably easier, but not braindead). Because FireBrand's larger attacks are also cinematic/slow, and work primarily because players are also slow, ranged DPS is the superior option until more Synergies are seen.
This leaves no obvious intent for Summoners, but they're the flex role, so from that perspective, let's think about what the flexibility they're offering to this is...
At the beginning, we can see that FireBrand's attacks do decent damage in an AoE.but the backline don't take any of this damage, obviously. Burning is applied, though. The Cleric's role is clear. Heal. The Tank's role remains clear. Control FireBrand's movement. The Summoner could join the 'ranged DPS' by sending a summon in.
The Tank's role doesn't help as much when the AoE 'summon magma/burning circles' happens, so they would have to somehow contribute to a synergy. The priority is not synergy related yet, though, it's as advertised, "don't stand in the fire". Fortunately, FireBrand does have the ability to 'randomly' do aerial flamebreath strafe right after such a summon of Burning Circles.
This Aerial Flamebreath has a huge tell. Even if no one gets out of the way, a Cleric's obvious choice is to face wherever the attack is going, and anyone still caught in it gets healed. It also covers a large but predictable area, and takes a long time. The amount of time FireBrand takes just to get back into a position to be any threat to anyone, is more than enough time to regenerate some mana, get everyone healed up, etc. If this attack was an instakill, it would imo honestly still not matter. Even getting time to raise the fallen isn't unlikely.
The massive movement does allow FireBrand to outrange the ranged DPS, but what happens to a summon here? Do they chase after it? Presumably the Summoner keeps the summon(s) close, to apply any benefit or buff that it grants to their party. But a double breath-strafe takes so long that if one were to use a 20s CD heal on reaction to seeing liftoff, to help someone survive the first strafe because they were unable to avoid it, it would be up again by the time FireBrand returned to purposefully dealing damage to anyone. (I feel like Necromancers get the short end of the stick here, with their summons shambling off to try to mindlessly keep up with the dragon)
This delay leaves more than enough time to cleanse, get shielded... personally as a Cleric my response to this move if I trusted my group at all would be /sit.
The seven second expanding AoE with the roar tell, would endanger summons, and maybe even push Ranged DPS back far enough to have to stop doing DPS (spoiler: it does not), but at least Fighters could just leap right over every fire wave after the first to start hitting again.
But from that moment until FireBrand's next meaningful threat can be 20 seconds minimum, precisely because can just do two spectacle moves back to back. I guess if your Bards were CCed this wouldn't just lead to a Shielding Dance as the incoming flames sweep over (six seconds worth of that). That's about the same casting time as Tiamat's Firaga III, which is good, I guess, but it does 460+(x3 if you don't evade or roll) damage and doesn't even seem to leave burning on anyone. Spectacle moves are fine, but roles matter.
The roles shown here as a result of FireBrand's design are 'people who shoot it', 'people who stand in front of it', 'people who heal the people standing in front of it', and 'people who stand near the people shooting it' (because when FireBrand repositions to use Anti-Zerg Flamethrower, the Bard's best option is not to move and just shielding dance.
Others spend more time chasing after movement than people do against Nouver in BDO, and I say this as someone who can keep up with Nouver's movement on my character. The hardest part of this seemed to be 'finding who needed to be healed or raised'. Later on in the fight, we do actually get a confirmation that it is possible to shoot FireBrand from outside even Concentric Flame Rings range.
We do see Bucky fall at some point, but the reason for this is seemingly entirely random, a flame puddle appearing... underwater, right beneath his feet, after AZ Flamethrower. But he is redeemed! By his effortless 'casually walk forward into the burnt area before the next explosion' in Concentric Flame Rings. As everyone should. It prevents damage! Hopefully there will be a way to control summons precisely enough to have them do it too.
FireBrand not only does not require synergy, it neither truly encourages nor rewards it. There is nothing to 'diminish the effect of', there's very little ability to keep up with its movement or options, so there can't be any actualized 'challenge' there. It's a situation of the reverse of my pet peeve in gaming, it's a boss that mostly limits what players are usefully able to do (assuming their aim is to engage it).
As with Tumok, I have no issue with this boss existing. There is a benefit in an MMO to have 40 people get together and do their best to avoid standing in fire or randomly having the ground explode under them while a few Clerics and Bards try to keep them standing. Further if PvP is happening, as mentioned in another TheoryRaid. As a 'source of random damage in a PvP arena' FireBrand does a good job, and it is adapted well to be the tactical focal point of this for the occasional Tank, whether that's 'momentarily tanking it' or 'pulling an enemy into it'.
I'm interested to see the expansion of roles that occurs when this fight evolves through the addition of PvP and becomes what one comes to this subgenre of MMO for. FireBrand does not need to be more, just as Tiamat does not need to be more. Tiamat's value cannot be seen without understanding the TP Gauge's effect on it, nor can FireBrand's value is hard to see without understanding the PvP environment's effect on it.
If there is a part of this that I consider to even approach valid feedback that matters toward the potential goals of the designers, it is probably this:
"The reason this was boring for me to watch and I expect would be doubly boring for me to play, is simply that my only role here is to determine who took damage and hit the anti-damage button', and the pace of the fight would likely be so lenient on my cooldowns that I would never be truly unable to do that without interference."
I want to see this again, with but with opposition. Maybe in A2 I will be part of that opposition.
Now that I think about it (because I never really play games with the 'Raid Frame'), is this normally 'hard' because you lose the ability to just F1-F6 your own party? Also I hope it's clear that this sort of thing (without opposition) is super bottable... honestly moreso because of the raid frame.
That said, I congratulate Intrepid Studios on their first(?) Burning Circle Notorious Monster.
Azherae
2
Re: Class Fantasy Question
Totally unrelated and selfish comment on this. I wish more game developers actually hired some HEMA consultants. Yes I know its a fantasy games with dragons and magic, but I breaks my heart every time I see those silly weapon movesets. You are swinging a 3kg greatsword, not a 30kg sack of potatoes.