Explain it to me like I'm dumb because I am... how is this simulating an MMO raid?

[BigTplaysGamesTTV]

I played the demo. I'm CLEARLY missing something here, folks. Thats not me being a jerk and calling the game bad. I'm saying I look at all the overwhelmingly positive reviews and I realize theres something I'm missing culturally here that is being captured properly.

My experience with raids was limited to WoW and Pokemon Go. I did play actual MMOs here and there but never got far enough where raiding was an issue. But in WoW you just kinda..... waited for enough people and took your shot. Sure eventually I was in a guild where a few people knew what they were doing and they shouted out orders but generally they werent followed alll that closely. You won or lost. I never saw the point in it other than having the best gear. And you dont need the best gear if you dont raid so I just...stopped wasting my time on it. I watch my friends play FF14 on twitch and they just kinda throw themselves at the bad guy until hes dead.

They'll do matchup elemental type strategies in some instances but I'm not seeing crazy depth there, nor do I see how any of that is being represented here like the reviews claim. What am I missing?

How is ANY of that being represented in this game where I pressed one of four buttons over and over again until bad guy went dead?

[The Grungler]

This is really based around FFXIV raiding, as the dev posted about at some point saying they played way too much. It's very obvious by the classes and appearances as well as the font. With FFXIV, raiding is a lot like a dance or playing a piece of music. It is well scripted and there are ways to avoid or mitigate every attack, much like this game has. There are also enrage timers where if you do not meet a dps check and kill a boss in time, it will do an attack that instantly kills the party resulting in a TPK or wipe. The bosses in R&S do this in harder difficulties, and if you're really lazy about damage, you can even manage this on lower difficulties by seeing the enrage timer on the upper right-hand side of the screen. The fact that you can beat this solo is primarily just a convenience thing and quality of life option. You're obviously not going to experience something akin to a raid if you aren't playing with a full party. Also, using your attacks on cooldown and timing your burst windows is very much important in FFXIV raiding, the fact that you only have 4 moves in R&S instead of 30 is just semantics. A lot of the raid mechanics are ones seen in FFXIV raiding as well (cleaves, tethers, spread, stack, etc.)

[Clyceer]

If you played by yourself and spammed one button, then yes, you definitely missed something. Although from your description of MMOs it seems all you think of them is "you fight a guy in multiplayer" and "you either win or lose", so I'm not sure what you were expecting to see, but didn't.

Anyway, in terms of what actually gives it an MMO feel:

For one, the fights change when you're in multiplayer. There are fewer bullets, but you have to coordinate positioning with your allies in response to attacks that require you to either group up or spread out in a variety of ways. This is the part of the MMOs that's probably under "they shouted out orders but generally werent followed alll that closely" to you.

There are a number of other mechanics that typically come up in boss fights in MMOs as well. Needing to choose a position that will be safe after an unavoidable knockback, needing to stand in an assigned spot, needing to move or not move at a certain moment, tethers that need stretched. The list goes on, honestly. I was playing with a friend who currently plays FF XIV and they kept calling out fights Rabbit and Steel reminded them of.

And if you're just spamming one button (probably your Primary attack?) until the enemy is dead, then you're also missing something. You get better DPS and better fight rewards if you actually use your skills together. It's a bit simplified compared to a full MMO skillbar, but really has the feel of performing a skill rotation in an environment where there are varying cooldowns to manage, as well as a global cooldown every time a skill is used.

[zero]

im sure others gave you a detailed response, but to give a far more simple one:

ff14 raids/dungeons play in a similar manner to this game, in which the mechanics expect you to work with your allies to do them (ie match up symbols, or stack together), or to do proper placement to avoid hurting anyone (spread, cones and the like)

as someone who also played WoW for a while, the raiding in that game is less about doing mechanics and more about just beating the boss as fast as possible, to the point where it had mods that just calls out how to resolve w/e debuff you have so you can go back to the classic Standing And Hitting Tech(tm).

short story shorter: its ff14 raiding where you have to work with your allies, not WoW raiding where everyone is solving their own stuff.

[BigTplaysGamesTTV]

thanks folks. you explained it. i just dont play ff14 so i dont understand its mechanics. I get it to a point.

[Xersin]

Originally posted by BigTplaysGamesTTV:

How is ANY of that being represented in this game where I pressed one of four buttons over and over again until bad guy went dead?

Better than XIV does. Healers over there only press two buttons.