Disembowel

Day 439

I'm reasonably impressed with some of the lower level dungeons in Final Fantasy XIV. Most of them are at least fairly nice to look at and feature bosses that require strategy and coordination to defeat. The first boss of Sunken Temple of Qarn resulted in four straight losses in a row. The first group I attempted the fight with gave up in frustration. Fortunately, I was able to assemble a more competent group later and we were able to vanquish the boss with ease.

The most traditional strategy for defeating bosses in MMOs (particularly in World of Warcraft, just because I'm so familiar with it) is the "tank and spank" strategy. The group's tank will attract the attention of the boss and soak up the majority of the damage while the healer focuses most of his or her efforts on keeping that tank alive. The other players (three in WoW, two in Final Fantasy XIV) will focus primarily on dealing as much damage as possible over the course of the fight. The healer will do little to no damage at all and the tank will only do so much as is necessary to keep the boss at bay. Tanks will generally generate additional "threat," or "enmity" as FFXIV calls it. This causes the boss to focus its attacks on the tank instead of targeting the frail and more easily killed members of the party.

"Tank and spank" is the most common variety of boss battle, but it's far from the only way to design these encounters. FFXIV features refreshingly few of these types of fights. In Halatali, one boss must be lured away from a body of water or else he'll electrify the entire party. The final boss of that dungeon becomes completely invincible and summons fire elementals that seek out members of the party--but once these minions are dispatched, the boss's invulnerability dissipates. Similarly, in Sunken Temple of Qarn, a golem boss cannot be damaged until its core is destroyed. This core regenerates over a period of time, but when it's destroyed, the party is given a window of opportunity to put out as much damage as possible.

There are some aspects of FFXIV that I'm skeptical about, particularly when it comes to the long global cooldown between abilities. The dungeon design is going a long way toward keeping me interested though, and it's probably what will keep me playing once I hit max level, if nothing else. I really enjoy the overall aesthetic of the game, but I have to admit the grind to advance in the mid 30s is laborious. You'll go long stretches of time without acquiring any new traits or abilities, except for attribute points which have little to no demonstrative effect on the way your character works. 

I read recently that the first expansion for FFXIV is coming Spring 2015 and will introduce some new jobs and classes as well as a new playable race. Of course, the new WoW expansion is coming out soon as well, and I'd be lying if I said I'm not interested in checking that out. At the very least, I'd like to get on and hit level 100 on my paladin. She's the only character I've ever gotten to 90, although I got close on my warrior as well. I'm interested in both of these, but it's not likely I'll commit to playing two MMOs simultaneously. I guess it really depends on how I feel about the endgame of FFXIV. I'm not concerned that there'll be too little content for me to experiment with, because there's already a pretty decent amount of classes for me to try, but I am genuinely curious about how Warlords of Draenor will impact the WoW universe.