What FFXIV’s target circle changes mean for the game

The Final Fantasy XIV director has hinted at target circles being reduced in Dawntrail. Here’s what that means for the MMORPG.

Final Fantasy XIV’s director Naoki Yoshida has teased that the game’s target circles will be changing in the upcoming Dawntrail expansion. For a casual player, that might not mean a whole lot. But here’s how it’s set to impact the game from the perspective of a raider.

With the dev team announcing they believe the game has become too relaxed, they’ve begun making plans to shake up the game’s difficulty, this includes reducing the size of enemy target circles, meaning players will need to be more up close and personal to deal damage.

What is a target circle in FFXIV?

Square Enix

Target Circles are vital in indicating what character you’re targeting.

A target circle in Final Fantasy XIV is essentially the size of an enemy’s hitbox. It determines how close melee characters need to be to hit the boss and vice versa. This is indicated by the outline underneath the enemy currently targeted.

How will target circles changes impact FFXIV?

Reducing the size of boss target circles means players can maneuver the boss around far more in raids. This opens up more strategies and mechanics to be implemented, rather than having the boss consistently be somewhat centered for most of their mechanics.

Tanks and melee DPS will need to be tighter together to hit the boss as well, which may mean different strategies will need to be created for optimal DPS uptime.

While this isn’t a direct increase in difficulty numerically speaking, this does play into what Yoshi-P was talking about when wanting to make the game more stressful. Many boss hitboxes in Endwalker have become massive, taking up nearly the entire arena (looking at you Alpha Omega).

Square Enix

Alpha Omega and other Endwalker bosses have huge target circles, which will be changing in Dawntrail.

The reduced target circle will also allow the developers to take a few more risks when it comes to encounter design. It may mean smaller arenas or mechanics that require more movement with the boss or even mechanics that require players to lead the boss to a certain section of the arena to solve the upcoming mechanic correctly.

This change is just one part of a culminating increase in difficulty that the developers are planning for Dawntrail, which can drastically shift how we tackle combat in Final Fantasy XIV.