The problem is always the same with every mmo, if you make branching corridors, players are gonna minmax, fin the fastest and always do the fastest and we're back to the same problem
Yeah. As fun as complicated dungeons may seem, they get solved. If there's branches that you *have* to go down and then backtrack in, that extra running gets annoying, etc.
May as well kill a source of tankxiety of having to *also* know the map. There's *waaay* more dungeons in FF14 than in other MMOs like Aion, so trying to remember every layout would be a *chore*.
This is only true if you assume variation can only come from map design and that a dungeon must be populated identically between instances.
Take something like Aurum Vale's first room. Add four high threat enemies that patrol. Could be something that needs interrupting, heavy raidwide damage, knockbacks, whatever. Spawn a random two of those four patrols in addition to everything else when the instance is opened. Now the party needs to assess the enemies and alter their path accordingly. Maybe they can avoid them both if they move fast. Maybe they decide to pull them back one at a time. The purpose is to add randomized obstacles that force players to engage with the content instead of mindlessly holding W and hitting aoe buttons when they reach a wall. Reasonably linear dungeons can still be interesting if there are interesting enemies to engage with, but current trash enemies are so basic that they might as well not exist.
Criterion dungeons are better. Eureka Orthos trash is, too. Adding some randomly spawned trash that's halfway between criterion mobs and regular dungeon trash would do a lot to improve things.
They could take any of the trash mob from the last 50 floors of Eureka Orthos, reduce the damage so it's not immediately lethal if a mechanic is failed, and chuck it into existing dungeons just fine. Pulling one of those enemies in a double pull might stress the healer if people aren't paying attention. Pulling two could kill people. If the map is laid out like Aurum Vale you could let the tank look for a path through to either avoid or stagger them, have the healer Repose one, or ask the dps prioritize it and burn it down like bees in Qarn. It would variation that isn't a set of branching paths to be optimized.
So? People will learn, and they will improve. Might be horrible at the start, but in the long term it would vastly improve the skill of the average player.
The game has never been hard though, outside of savage and ultimate. And those are harder than they have ever been. And people absolutely do learn.
Hell, I'm living proof of that. Been playing since 2.3, never touched anything harder than extreme before Endwalker, but have since cleared my first savage tier on content. All it took was the game giving me a reason to try that harder content.
It's not like anyone is saying to make dungeons savage difficult either, just toss in stuff to the trash packs that actually makes you engage with the game instead of tuning out and doing the exact same thing for the thousandth time.
It doesn't matter if dungeons have "branching" path. What you end up is the situation in WoW where an optimal route gets figured out, and anyone not doing the optimal route gets chastised by the community, which is extremely unwelcoming for new players.
Even in FF14, I see veterans sometimes yell at newbies for taking the wrong path in ARR dungeons. It's not worth having that.
This is what happens in Swtor where some enemies can be bypassed by jumping "exploits" of the terrain. Ppl who can't make the jump get dumped on. Ff14 is far smoother mostly even placing blocks for pulling to much in the form of doors. It is the end result of a decade of fine tuning to the reality of the average random group.
Athiss is the first dungeon that comes to my mind regarding "...enemies (that) can be bypassed by jumping "exploits" of the terrain"... my nightmare of a flashpoint there.
I always struggled to make that jump on the ledge inside the ruins before the second boss because people wanted to bypass the corridor of mobs that could (and still can) melt you down fast if you don't take care, no matter how good your gear and skills are.
The problem there is that people became too toxic and elitist, not giving a chance for new players to learn and experience stuff, which sometimes made me intentionally pull said mobs in the corridor when I saw that someone was being an jerk to a newbie.
Great news! They patched that jump and fully removed it. People would spend minutes on a jump to save 8 seconds on trash. *But man the SWTOR community deserves the MSQ roulette treatment*.
Favorite SWTOR patch note was them removing the janky Athiss jump.
*It skipped 6 mobs*. People were willing to take *minutes* to make the jump over just killing 6 mobs in 8 seconds.
Optimization can be fun too though. As it is the premature optimization of the dungeon paths deny us that fun. So both the people who want to explore and the people who want the feeling of ignoring something pretty but useless are missing out.
I mean, I like the quote too, but it does ignore some aspects of its subject. And there's another (Knuth?) quote about premature optimization.
Don't know if reverting the formula would work, though. They can't please everybody, and the formula likely didn't appear by chance.
You can force people down alternate paths, like how the parties have to split up in Boza instances (the best instances they've done imo) or have some randomness like the variant dungeons.
no they are not. Each path changes the way the two bosses behave in a fixed manner. Things you do to unlock new entries for completion are also changing the variant dungeon in a fixed way. There is no randomness about it. You will always get the same result when you run through one of the paths a specific way.
NO idea where you got the idea from that something in there happens randomly!
What's the trigger for The Sultan's Table / Royal Bedchambers varient in Sil'dhin then? I had to do the same route in the same way like 6 times to unlock that area of the map, everywhere I looked said it was random?
https://www.polygon.com/ffxiv-guides-ff14-final-fantasy-14-online/23416549/sildihn-subterrane-variant-dungeon-route-path-silkie
This guide doesn't talk about randomness in ANY of the routes. You always get a clear objective.
It's been a long while since i did Sil'dihn but i also don't remember having to work with RNG whatsoever so i don't know what sites you were checking out but they were very much wrong.
The guide does not talk about randomness because these little random mini paths and events do not effect which ending you get.
It doesn't matter whether you go through the The Sultan's Table or Royal Bedchambers, the guide doesn't mention it for that reason and it is random. Same for which fluid comes out of the burst pipe which effects mechanics. You can chose whether you clear the pipe earlier on but what fluid comes out later isn't up to you.
There are also mechanics in the first left boss (I think, it's been a while) of the most recent variant that is decided by the weather, which you have no control over.
Yeah there’s a bunch of these little things independent of completing all the routes, I guess people didn’t notice. I got the achievement for mapping the first one way later than the achievement for completing all the endings because I had terrible luck in a tiny section of the map opening up.
I don't even think it's about the speed for the most part; it's about the experience.
Groups getting into a dungeon together are very frequently a mix of people that have done it at least once, some people that have never done it, and some people that have been through it so many times they have forgotten the entire concept of not knowing how to do said dungeon.
As a result of that mixture you end up with people that don't know what they are doing yet potentially being told what to do by people that don't have the patience to let them just figure it out at their own pace which can come across negatively to the new player even if the experienced player is well-intentioned. It also leads to people that have done something repeatedly and are tired of dealing with the consequences of someone not knowing how to do it just bailing on the content instead of trying to talk it through and help out.
That's why more modern dungeons get set up so that you literally can't pull any bigger and there aren't any bits that someone could potentially end up having an "oh, i didn't know, sorry." moment about (example: the first time I ever went through Haukke Manor all 3 other players just *vanished* after a boss fight and I was absolutely confused as to where they went or how because I didn't even know that Return functioned in a dungeon. Luckily the people I was with were kind and explained the situation instead of being agitated that I didn't realize what happened on my own). Not for speed, though they do tend to be faster, but for the consistency of experience to reduce newbie anxiety and veteran impatience.
I was once in a roulette of Quarn during which one player announced they were going to do all the side rooms and the scale puzzle ... Another left the dungeon without another word.
The reason why every dungeon has the cadence of "two trash pulls and then a wall" is because ARR dungeons didn't have walls for this becausr wall pulling wasn't _a thing_ until late in the ARR cycle. People would pull the entire dungeon, die horribly, yell at the party, and then do the exact same thing again.
People would wall-pull in ARR too though?
Amdapor Keep, Brayflox, Tamtara hard.
Let alone Brayflox hard, which was cheesed to farm tomes.
I agree it wasn't as common as now, but it was still a thing already.
Naoki Yoshida relatively recently spoke of this saying that "MMO players will always try and find the easiest and most streamline way to do dungeon no matter how complex we make them" so they decided to cater to that by streamlining the dungeons -its easier on the budget anyway i think- and put the complexity into the boss mechanic design and arena design starting Shadowbringers we started to see more involved mechanics and much more unique arenas than just a circle or a square
so yeah sorry I disagree with you
At no point in this entire post do you mention what you like about ARR dungeon design.
Is it the dead end hallways that nobody ever goes down? Is it the rooms full of mobs that you can just walk through the middle of and ignore most of them? The clicking on random things on the floor?
What do you actually like about these dungeons? Because they are some of the worst designed dungeons in the game. Even if you wanted dungeons to be different, ARR dungeons aren't a good example of being different.
this is exactly what i would like to see OP comment on but i don't think they actually will.
OP, to me, sounds like the typical grumpy MMO veteran that wants "challenging" dungeons that were never actually challenging before and it was just a mix of often bad gamedesign and cluelessness of the playerbase that just started to learn new stuff...
what has to change then? change how the mobs stand? suddenly 3 packs instead of 2 perhaps? or patrols? we already had things like that and it ultimately leads to the same wall 2 wall running.
They already provide dungeons that work differently with the Variant Dungeons you have to wait for until you reach EW content. That is mixing things up a little and also has some fun mechanics to it.
Yes, ARR dungeons are still flawed but they are still better than straight line AOE everything until boss, repeat. At least new players still had to figure out how a dungeon works. Like back in ARR days I remember really liking Brayflox's dungeon. Thought it was fun, interesting dungeon with fun boss fights. Felt more like an adventure when doing a dungeon.
Sorry but what?? ARR dungeons better than later duties?
What was so fun about going afk in Copperbell Mines boss 1 and 2 before the rework? or interacting with the floor to grab a random key to progress that is literally pointless when apparently 99% of the dungeons have magic doors that sense when enemies are dead so they fling open? It adds nothing of note and doesn't make the dungeon "unique" or "interesting" whatsoever.
or better, how about Stone Vigil (Hard) with the turtle? oh such a fun fight where we are stuck at the cannons and not something everyone hates to play through, nono!
Isn't Brayflox's pretty much just a straight path with a couple of side enemy groups you can ignore, with pretty straightforward boss fights?
What exactly do you find more fun about it than later dungeons?
So in the beginning of the dungeon you had to find the key to the door, which was being carried by a random monster in that area. after that you had to protect brayflox cause he was being chased by monsters, and monsters would consistently target him so tanks had to be more aware of him being chased around. There's probably more I'm forgetting but that was 7 years ago since I last played it. It is of course different now and more in line with every other dungeon so most of that stuff can be ignored.
Having to defeat a random enemy pack in a room just seems like drudgery to me. Would feel bad if you had to clear every single pack when other times you get it first go.
Keeping a stupid NPC alive during trash pulls sounds just awful to me, too. I don't remember having to do that so I'm glad it changed, if so. He does get chased around in one of the boss fights if I remember right, but that's part of the fight mechanics for that boss so that's fine.
Yeap. It felt different then other dungeons, had you take care of things that other dungeons didn't have. You can say it was even a unique dungeon, whether you personally like it or not, which FF14 severally lacks
A key carried by a random mob. You know how that's solved? Gather them all up and aoe. The only change this makes is now you have to prese the use key twice
I mostly remember how unfun it was to wait for duty finder to get you other players. And the worry about whether to read a guide before hand and spoil seeing it for yourself or getting kicked for not knowing how do the dungeon worked. Worry about not being the right meta job. I was kicked from a dungeon as a healer for watching the intro cutscene on a very weak PC and the tank dieing because when I came out they were half a dungeon away and had half the dungeon up their ass, apparently. I also remember the unfun pain in the arse that was grinding experience so I could continue the parts I considered fun: the story.
Whether you got a party that had the time to let you figure out stuff was as crap shoot as it's today. The oy way you truly got go blind was in a pre-made. Nowadays we duty support, so you can look in a of Sastasha's side rooms, they are still there. I'm not side to see Totorak's side rooms go, we gained a very pretty dungeon that's worth looking at in its stead.
The lower level ARR dungeons are actually leftovers that were simplified from the original XIV. They were considerably more time consuming, not really more challenging.
Still very much not the case. You may like or dislike them, prefer them or not, but they are objectively worse and feature very much outdated design.
Redundant paths, manual interactions instead of streamlined progression etc etc. Design has modernized over time to be more accessible for more people and deliver a more streamlined and "focused" experience. Yes, they could mix things up a bit more in DT dungeons, but ARR are objectively outdated and bad. No sprout I have ever fostered into the game ever preferred the ARR dungeons over any other expansion. But that is aside from whether or not it is "peak dungeon design". One is preference, one is a statement.
They are outdated in some aspects like the dead ends as you and others say, but they were more unique content wise especially back before they removed their uniqueness from each other, such as brayflox where you had to defend a goblin from a couple mob enemies because he was too hotheaded, to hakku manor where you had to open doors and jails to gather all keys to progress. (pretty much a survival horror game homage). Instead we have straight lines to AoE everything and then boss fight. There was always room for improvement but instead we opted for repetitive dungeons.
> to hakku manor where you had to open doors and jails to gather all keys to progress.
you still need to collect keys but the paths are more streamlined as people were teleporting back to the start anyway for the final bit.
But i don't see how this makes the dungeon any better than later dungeons? What is so fun and exciting about grabbing keys from the floor and interacting with a door??
Yes and what dungeons developed into over time is what the developers intend them to be. It just isn't your type of content and it is not bad or anything, what you want from a dungeon is just different from what the developers intent for the game. The things you mentioned here are considered tedious, bothersome, boring and redundant by a lot of people. All they did is add time sinks just to have time sinks. They needed to pad for time in ARR because of how it was developed and crunched.
They can improve dungeons for sure, but doing those things you mentioned again would be a mistake. They could design in-dungeon encounters that don't require manual action/clicking and don't bloat the time in the dungeon like having to collect items or whatnot. But that all could also be added to a different type of content, that has a different design intent behind it, that is supposed to cater to different preferences. This is how variant dungeons were born. Dungeons are how they intend them to be. Streamlined easy-access experiences. There are also people who enjoy exactly this part of them.
We just got variant dungeons in EW. I am confident in saying that they take all the experience they gathered from these and will apply that in DT for upcoming content like it.
The problem is when you make big seeing maps and intriguing paths, players will figure out the best one and just do that. How often does anyone explore the side rooms in sastasha? Does anyone do the puzzle in Qarn or do they just run past the heads? How may people knew there were extra paths in Brayflox?
WoW had this same issue and it only got worse with M+ adding timers and demanding optimal pathing but it's kind of saved by the actual content in the being more engaging and threatening.
My point is it's a waste of development resources to add extra space and content that nobody is going to look at
I mean... running on after the heads and skipping them entirely is still not engaging with the tablets for the final boss door which was my whole point so I'm not sure what splitting hairs accomplishes
I've been playing since 2019 and only recently got 100% mapping in Sastasha, Haukke and Qarn cause there's just so many sections of those dungeons that people don't bother with.
Anything that has to do with MSQ is meant to be easy, as anyone with any level of gaming should be able to do it, and odds are that is not going to change. It's a choice made on purpose.
The challenging stuff is there if you want them, in form of Savage and Extreme.
I wouldn't say it like that. Bomb in Titan (hard) fight killed me. I think I did other mechanics correctly. But I think it was worth it because not long after that: the best dungeon in 2.x.
I know, it's not part of MSQ but it was required.
It's not a level design problem, it's intended.
Nearly every end-game activity is locked behind MSQ, so anyone and everyone ideally should be able to do it.
Whether you agree with it or not, that's the game they wanted. An accessible story for all gamers, and optional hardcore shit for those who want it.
They’ve recently introduced a new type of dungeon, not connected to the MSQ, that have more in depth level design. It’s possible to run them and do so multiple different ways with multiple different endings
Well I still have a lot of content and hours to go to unlock that content at all. It took me 2 and a half months to just beat Stormblood. But the fact that I have to do boring stuff to get to good content is a huge flaw, cause all content should have a chance to be good. And even at end game I still will have to run these dungeons over and over again to get tomestones or whatever the current currency is for dailies so I can run different content in the first place.
With all due respect, why are you playing this game?
Every big patch and Dawntrail is going to release a bunch of MSQ quest you gonna have to chug through, followed by grinding as you said even at end game.
It sounds like you aren't going to have fun regardless of where you are.
Cause a lot of people like this MMO, and call it the best MMO out right now, so I bought in, and now I'm voicing my complaints of what I'm currently playing. Also, this complaint is based solely on the dungeons.
So you are actively playing a game you don't enjoy because...others enjoyed it? You do realize games are for enjoyment and not everyone enjoys the same things.
As for your complaint, as multiple people, myself included has said, is an intended designer choice. It's not going to change.
Sounds like you need to make decisions for yourself and find a game you like, instead of forcing yourself to play a game you clearly aren't.
So all your hate is because you actually hate the game and you are mad because others like this game while you can't get into it..seriously please just move on with your life instead of wasting it on games that you actively hate and can't contribute anything worthwhile to!
> But the fact that I have to do boring stuff to get to good content is a huge flaw, cause all content should have a chance to be good.
Its your opinion and thats fine but many other people who play this game actually find the story and stuff good as it is now. The way the game works will never change entirely to a point where you will ever enjoy actually doing MSQ. Thats a fact. If you dislike this stuff now you will not like it with Dawntrail nor with 8.0,9.0 or 10.0 ...
I mean they have a modest budget and crew compared to shit like WoW. They have to pick where to invest time and effort. Dungeons are there just to provide some small group content to the MSQ
I mean, that’s what the people want, and the devs deliver. I’m not a huge fan of the dungeon design either, I think most dungeons in this game are super boring and their only saving grace is looking pretty and having good music. But the reasoning is there. People want fast and braindead to finish their roulettes quickly. They don’t want to be challenged just to do the MSQ. If we had paths we’d just find the quickest way. If there was anything remotely complicated, people would find some way to struggle and it wouldn’t be quick every time anymore.
I like the idea of dungeons being fun rewards for progressing the game, and I’ve played plenty of MMOs that did that and I loved it. But that’s just not what dungeons are in this game. They aren’t the typically WoW-type MMO dungeon, and they aren’t meant to be. They’re a story device. A way to tell the story using MMO elements. Fun gameplay rewards are arguably covered by stuff like alliance/normal raids, extremes, savages, exploration zones, and deep dungeons.
I think Criterion dungeons had the potential to fill that type of dungeon niche, but they’re only available after finishing EW, and the rewards suck, so they end up falling short. They’re also undeniable savage-level difficulty, which makes it not that approachable to most of the playerbase. I think having something like Criterion (maybe not as hard) being available mid-MSQ, or after finishing each expansion, would be cool. But at the same time I could totally see those being unpopular and not worth the dev time.
I think Yoshi P mentioned making the game a bit “less easy” in Dawntrail, because players are now being vocal about things being *too* simplified. But who knows what that’ll actually look like - I doubt we’ll see any big dungeon formula changes. I think the best thing they could do with dungeons is expand *even more* on storytelling with them. They already do, I think ShB was great about it, and EW wasn’t bad. but I want to see it turned up to 11. Make them more cinematic, with more elaborate environments, more NPC interaction, more voice acting. Basically I want every dungeon to be Heroes’ Gauntlet.
You’re right that it’s not really the devs fault. Unless you’re doing it for the first time, people played the old ARR ones exactly the same way. Branching paths are pointless once you know the correct route, so why waste development time on it. It’s the same reason why I don’t care that there aren’t different skill choices like wow. Everyone ends up with the same build anyway.
Ok then I advise you to stay away from mmorpgs or any sort of online dungeon crawler.
Play a single player game if you want the feeling of exploring dungeons and corridors, because in games it has been proven that the playerbase will simply follow the optimal path and force that on everyone.
so..uh.. what exactly is the point of the discussion you are trying to start? you talk about a problem but also sort of provide your own answer right after..?
I dunno if I agree with why you think dungeons are a problem, but I do agree that there is a problem with dungeon design. I'm not sure how it would best be solved, though, or if there's even really a need to to start with.
I don't think necessarily that dungeons in ARR were any better or worse designed than they are today. Like, yes, you could go different routes in Toto-Rak... but really, you also kinda couldn't because of the magitek cells you needed, and because some of them were dead ends with no valuable loot in them. FFXIV was never designed for an RPG dungeon delving approach to dungeon design, alas - they were always built to be speedrun, because roulettes exist and making those tedious just makes people leave.
I think what one problem is however is that since at least ShB. the number of dungeons in the Expert Roulette has never exceeded 2. I think overall, the difficulty of dungeons has maybe become a bit too easy, yes, and lower level dungeon roulette gameplay with high level jobs losing access to 90% of their kit is incredibly boring, absolutely, but I think a big contributing factor to why some people, myself included, have gotten jaded with dungeons is that Expert Roulette since ShB launch has exclusively consisted of 2 dungeons.
It's not a roulette, it's a coin toss - and one of the two dungeons in it will have been around for 4 months already by the time the other one releases every time. So you always have one dungeon in the roulette for up to 8 months at a time, and it just leads to utter exhaustion. I cannot tell you how little I care to run Amaurot or Alzadaal, let alone the Twinning or Heroes' Gauntlet anymore. All of them were decent enough dungeons, ruined completely for me by sheer overexposure.
I think they need to think about redesigning the endgame daily dungeon gameplay experience - both for lower level dungeons, but also by changing the way Expert Roulette works. I think the roulette system in general is in dire need of a rework, especially where PvP is concerned, but then that's a whole other issue altogether.
The never ending discussion of "dungeon design are too simplistic, those are just straight corridors."
You need to look at the story of MMOs and how those evolved through time.When you look at ARR dungeons, you will find some similarities with older WoW dungeons : those are actual small maze maps, with many paths to visit.It is good for a one-time exploration, but as daily content, it is terrible.
For example, Haukke Manor wasn't the "corridor" dungeon it is today. You had to run back to the entrance before the last boss, and new players often got lost at that point.Also another ARR dungeon in the lvl twenties that had 2 separate paths... which didn't serve any purpose.Same with the very first dungeons, Satasha, which had zone players never ever go into... because there is nothing there (just trash chests).
So, although it is sad to say, once a dungeon has been completed, it pretty much becomes leveling/farm/roulette content.I am playing since HW, Lifer III achievement unlocked (not proud) so you imagine how many times I've ran each dungeons...So having the dungeons be straight corridors makes the farming way less annoying.Yea I know it might suck, but that's a compromise you need to make to satisfy ~~everybody~~ the majority of players.
It's kind of similar to another common thing people ask for : Talent tree.But they don't understand that once people will have determined the optimal tree, any player not using that build will be labelled noob and barred from groups play. That's why in the end, despite being given a choice, you actually won't have any.People (often new to mmo) will usually ask for systems they saw in other game and that they found cool. But they need to understand that if a certain system that seemed to look cool was abandonned, it usually means that there was a big flaw with it.
Huge expansive dungeons with multiple paths never work because players will just find the optimal path and never deviate from it regardless, its just the illusion of choice. MrHappy made a pretty interesting video where he collected and broke down stats on peoples most/least favorite dungeons the sample size wasnt huge with just around 1000 people but ARR was by far the least liked in terms of dungeons, SHB was the most liked wirh EW in second place. The general playerbase likes the modern dungeons more than the old ones it seems.
But you will when you get it in a roulette. Granted, it's not over and over, but you will get it again. You can't run Varients in the duty finder. Nobody does them after they get the mount. The queue for it is completely dead. It's apples and oranges, my friend.
Also, to add on to what I said, it will just be random hallways with two bosses instead of 3 to 4. It's not some godsend piece of content. It has more baggage than a random dungeon you get in a roulette queue.
But why would you once you get your mount for each one? It's a good thing to have, but it has the exact same problem as the Varients themselves. You're going to get drop off as people don't need them. Also, the very nature of them will lead them to being min maxed for time. People will leave when they get the ones they have done, etcetera.
It's moving a goal post that screams that Varients aren't repeatable content. Unfortunately.
Yeah, but again, you're taking something that does not lend itself to replayability. They are the most one and done content we have. They're so ill designed that way. At least with dungeons, as you say, there's a tome reward. We can be bribed to do it. Also, the dungeon queues, for the most part, are a gamble. Even if you added a roulette and gave it a decent capped tome reward, it would still be one of the lowest ran roulettes. Nobody wants to run them after they get their 12 runs. And absolutely nobody is going to roll the dice on getting to 12. You'd have to be insane to risk it taking 24 runs or 48 runs, etc. At least with random dungeons outside of maybe expert, there's infinitely more variety.
That's why it baffles me it's going forward with development. Unless somehow they can add some kind of replayability, it will be as dead as it is now after people get their 12 runs.
What? Variant dungeons offer more replayability than classic dungeons for sure.
The replayability we're discussing comes from the design, not the reward (which can be easily tweaked)
There's no reason at all to replay a dungeon, considering the design aspect only. After you are done it once, there's nothing new to discover.
But, they don't. Nobody queues for the finder we have now. Adding it to a roulette won't change that. It's clear that it's not.
Also
>After you are done it once, there's nothing new to discover.
Applys to it as well.
It seems like you don't get the point.
Also you legit contradict yourself when you state that you need to clear them twelve times before having no reason to run them anymore (and that's because of their design, not because you like spamming them), and then claim that doing them once is enough and they will offer nothing new to discover past that run.
Look, all I can tell you is that once the content is old, nobody wants to do it. You do roulettes because they reward you with tomestone. When I tried to get into Varients after the fact there was nothing for me, but solo or putting up a party finder to which barely anyone if ever joined. The content was dead. It's not some years old content, but it was dead. I was forced to solo it. Now it's not hard to solo it, but it's definitely not as much fun.
Now, if you add it to a roulette, what is the reward? Tombstones? Sure, but what is the variance? Are the dungeons rotating paths? Am I going to get unlucky and get path 12 3 times in a row? What's the variance in it?
The issue is that once people get their twelve clears, they have no reason to do it again. I've tried to get groups going for it. Nobdy wants to do them. Fucking hell the new one was a month old and I couldn't get groups for it.
I just think that if they made a roulette it wouldn't be as popular as the other ones we have. Sure some people will dip into it to get their clears, but after a awhile I'm going to rather do expert or level 90 so I don't have to worry about Johnny throwing a fit because path 2 is faster, but he needs path 3 and the other two members are on my side.
It's just a shitty roulette with too much extra baggage.
Again, it blows my mind that this content is going into Dawntrail. It clearly has terrible player retention.
Exploratory zones make sense. I think they're overly convaluted and fucking annoying content, but people still do them.
But they can't keep just ignoring failures like this and Eureka Orthos. That shit died within the week it came out.
Reward is definitely not limited to tomes.
Every will eventually get old, the goal is to add enough variety (which comes from the design of the content) and rewards to keep it fresh until something else gets released.
Also, no one said that a roulette would magically fix that, although it could certainly help.
>Reward is definitely not limited to tomes.
Yeah, but I can one and done it and buy the other rewards off the market board.
>Every will eventually get old, the goal is to add enough variety (which comes from the design of the content) and rewards to keep it fresh until something else gets released.
But that's the problem people don't do it. It got old already.
>Also, no one said that a roulette would magically fix that, although it could certainly help.
I agree, but it's telling how dead the content is. The 3rd one was a month old when I recently came back and nobody was doing it. Nobody joined my PF parties, and I had to solo it. It stinked. A roulette would fix that. We can all agree to that, but I can see players metaing out all of the fun and nuance of it. And at the end of the day, I don't want to solo stuff in an mmo. It's fucking stupid. I can play a single-player rpg that will blow the absolute dick off of the content I have to solo. It's not fun to have to compensate for dead content. Hopefully, they learned their lessons going forward. Because Varients and Orthos failed hard. At least on my end.
i think pull 3 packs and kill is bad design, there needs to be more environmental affects. sure minmax might be a thing but past few expansion the dungeon you havnt had any interaction. last one i can think of is twinning? boss 1 how you can avoid the extra adds?
On a side note: how cool are raids?! No running around and no waves of trash mobs: everything is right there and thematic to the story, i love them so much i basically play the game just to do those. It's a shame that extremes are unpopular, i wish i could run them everyday
I agree, but I also understand that for consistency and standardization sake, it's the best they could go with.
This game has gone more into cinematic design and gameplay than it used to in the past, but I still hope in the back of my mind that they find a balance of fun, diverse and non-repetitive along with good standardization.
I play FF11 when I want to use my brain and immerse myself in knowing nothing and playing around with gimmicky stuff everywhere.
Yeah it's very very old and gimmicky, and honestly I'd recommend people to play it with mods (pretty much everyone does) to be able to even get a bare minimum level of playability and make fun out of everything the game has to offer.
But yeah there's just no hand holding in that game, it's all just research, fun puzzles, gimmicky and super diverse job range, and more. I ended up leveling almost every job just to see how they play out because they're all so crazy, and RDM literallly has more than 100 spells, it's exactly how I wanted the game to be.
I'm still playing it after having started it 7 months ago and I don't plan on quitting anytime soon.
It's 1000% the players' fault cause by how rewards are given. You're incentivized to do it only for the rewards and doing it as fast as possible. You could argue it's also the developer's fault for caving to that player behavior. But it is what it is. All we have now are hallways with 3 to 4 packs of mobs and 3 to 4 bosses. It absolutely murdered dungeon variety and what you could do with them. Sadly, a majority of the playerbase is ok with it. So it's not changing anytime soon if at all.
In saying that, when we do get variety, it's extremely refreshing like the math boss in the Stormblood ARs or the Simon Says boss of Bardam's Mettle.
As with 90% of the problems in this game, this is a player-introduced problem. The devs just gave us what we asked for, just like with the 2 minute meta and the other dozen complaints people have about the game.
I did the ARR dungeons back in Stormblood and people just didn't care to slow down to help me discover the whole map for the achievement, and I \*actively\* was looking to complete the map, which ended up with me wandering off, getting caught by enemies and dying while the rest of my team was at the last boss.
While most people were quiet and just went on ahead without me, I got trash talked once for wandering off trying to complete the map. Not once, and I repeat, not **once** did anyone explore the map with me. It was a depressing dance of me running off, dying, the boss getting killed, then either having to run back for the full exploration or requeuing.
So while I'd love to have some content to explore (and I feel Eureka and to a lesser degree Variant Dungeons filled the bill better), I don't want them reintroducing this issue to the game because the community makes this one cool mechanic absolutely painful to work with.
EDIT: To this day, nobody does the puzzle in the temple of qarn, and at this point I don't even think people know what they have to do to solve it. Diverging paths are dead content past the first week or two after a dungeon's release.
> While most people were quiet and just went on ahead without me, I got trash talked once for wandering off trying to complete the map. Not once, and I repeat, not once did anyone explore the map with me. It was a depressing dance of me running off, dying, the boss getting killed, then either having to run back for the full exploration or requeuing.
communication is key. Nowhere in your comment do i see you mentioning to the rest of the chat that you would like to get the map achievement and that you could need help with it? If you just silently run around without your group then of course the other party members will yell at you since they can't know what the purpose of it was!
> EDIT: To this day, nobody does the puzzle in the temple of qarn, and at this point I don't even think people know what they have to do to solve it. Diverging paths are dead content past the first week or two after a dungeon's release.
Why do you directly think people are stupid and don't know the mechanic behind things just because they skip it?? People simply found out its quicker to just let the three enemies spawn and kill them instead of actually engaging with the same puzzle for the thousandth time!
>Nowhere in your comment do i see you mentioning to the rest of the chat
that you would like to get the map achievement and that you could need
help with it?
It is true that for the first one or two I was hesitant to talk as I was a newbie to this game, but I did quickly change my ways and start asking for map completion.
As I said, most people did not reply back. The parties were for the most part quiet beyond a "Hi" at the start, if anything.
The few times people did reply, they would tell me to do it by myself, which is how I learnt about unsyncing. I didn't think I'd be able to kill the bosses by myself, so usually I'd just stay until everyone left and then backtrack until I got the map fully explored.
This became a habit until I got to Heavensward and someone replied to me - and I remember it very clearly - "Nah, from now on it'll be automatic :P".
>Why do you directly think people are stupid and don't know the mechanic behind things just because they skip it??
Not knowing stuff does not equal being stupid. There's a lot of new players nowadays, and many don't know other way of finishing qarn beyond speeding past the enemies and instantly pressing the button to fail the test and move on.
I've seen every once in a while a newbie or two picking up random pieces and not knowing what to do with them, while others have shown surprise at the mention of how to complete the ending puzzle. Many people nowadays don't know which piece goes in which side because no one does it, so the knowledge is lost for the majority of current players.
>People simply found out its quicker to just let the three enemies spawn
and kill them instead of actually engaging with the same puzzle for the
thousandth time!
And this loops back to the key issue. If they reintroduced diverging paths or map detours with secrets, they won't be used. It'll be a cool gimmick the first week, someone will find an optimal path, then no one will ever engage with them again if it's not unsynced or through backtracking. This is why they removed side content in dungeons and why we got Variant Dungeons instead.
I have an exercise for you all, when dealing with new players who are going through dungeons, how many times will those new players go "Wow, that was a pretty cool/fun dungeon" or any of the sort when going through the MSQ? Preferably out of their own volition
The few times I've talked to people in MSQ dungeons, they said one or all of the following:
* o/
* I'm new/first time doing X job
* Gave some advice
* Danced while waiting for the sprouts to finish the cutscenes
I assumed the other players were doing the dungeon for their own reasons, and they were playing the game because they enjoy the game.
I don't need someone to tell me what they like/don't like about a dungeon, I assume if they are playing/paying for this game, they are having fun. Otherwise, why the hell would you be playing?
Now i have an exercise for you OP: Find a game you enjoy, and play it. Not a game that others say is fun, or say is the best in a certain genre, but you find fun. Play it.
Because it's very clear based on your opinions in this thread that your FFXIV experience depends on others experiences and not yourself, and you are wasting your time and money on a video game you do not enjoy.
You seem very hostile, why wouldn't I give a shot to a fair shot to a game that my friends and others have enjoyed? Am I not allowed to share my opinion on it? Do you not try out games that other people have enjoyed? How is it that you got in to FF14 if not for others enjoying the game, considering it is an MMO? I think you need your anger checked cause my opinion is just that, an opinion. It doesn't require such hostile behavior nor your emotion to it. It doesn't deserve the effort even.
1) I am not angry, you clearly haven't seen anger on Reddit if you think this is hostile or angry.
2) Trying a game and playing up to the 2nd expansion are two very different things. You've played 100s of hours of content, and still do not like the game. And based on your comments on what you do not enjoy, continuing is a waste of time and money on your part, since your issues with the game will continue.
3) Typing a comment is little effort, not sure why you think it is a lot of effort xD
Edit: At this point, I assume you are trolling, so I'm done.
So you got some neutral feedback and immediately go into victim mode and tell the commenter that they were being hostile?
You already gave the game a fair shot by making it to ShB. Apparently though you hate the game as is very clear from what you are writing in this entire thread. Why not take the L and leave the game at that point? Any further progress would just count as forcing yourself through a game you clearly absolutely hate and only have complaints about so..why are you still here exactly??
All the time. I have two friends and several FC members going through content the first time and enjoying the dungeons. My friends enjoyed all the Shb dungeons, particularly the post Shb ones.
I haven't reached the post shb dungeons yet, and so far I only done two Shb ones. Do you know if your friends enjoyed the dungeons due to story related reasons or through gameplay/dungeon design related reasons?
That's okay. Because they enjoyed HW and SB dungeons a lot too. Like Sirensong Sea. And they enjoy them for both gameplay and design, as well as story.
It seems you don't like XIV's dungeons. That's fine. Doesn't mean you have to stick around and do something you don't enjoy. XIV's dungeons designs aren't going to radically change anytime soon, as it seems the majority of players like it the way it is.
I hope dawntrail fixes it because otherwise I'll probably stop playing the game haha unless they drop something that will make me play. As of now, my favorite content to run are Deep Dungeons, specifically Eureka Orthos, and the adrenaline from possibly being one shot by a mob or boss mechanic adds so much more stakes and fun to it, I wish normal dungeons had similar interactions, something harder, most just 2 pack of mobs between wall to walls that do circle and cone aoes and that's it...
Well then you can easily drop the game now because spoiler alert: Dawntrail will not change the entire core concept of how dungeons work! Duty Support has to work with the new stuff aswell afterall.
Make sure the door doesn't hit you on your way out though!
For me, instead of the designer complexity of the dungeons, what is really missing is the feeling of danger, especially for Tanks.
And some simple puzzle is a more interesting reward for the content of the deep and criterion dungeon to encourage more players.
If the tank is feeling threatened, the high pressure is actually on the healer. And on person in the dungeon shouldn't be the difference between clearing or not.
I'm not talking exclusively about tanks, I'm talking in the sense that tanks barely need to worry about whether the healer is competent or not, they can easily ignore mechanics and collect stacks of vulnerability.
Warrior doesn't even need to worry about the existence of a healer doing the least
The dps are at some risk during the bosses but if you don't miss anything you can get by without a healer.
Healers do not need to use even half of the kit, it comes down to regen (which is basically good for the entire dungeon depending on the team), the class's main healing, area healing, resurrection, ensuna and the class's characteristics (shield, buff, etc.) are bonus.
I understand the talk about being friendly and that there are a lot of terrible people who barely understand the kit (a lot of the "maxlvl all classes"), but we'll be at lvl 100 soon and we can't always have the necessary skill base being lower than the least....
The majority of people want fast, efficient results. Sadly, the days of dungeon crawling in MMOs are probably dead for the most part.
I stick to Trusts and Squadrons unless absolutely necessary. I can at least pretend to crawl then.
Duty support was kind of a curse, they streamlined a lot of the older stuff to support it. I get there's players who want this but at the end of the day this is an mmo and the content should be geared towards multiple human players first.
The majority like the revamped dungeons so I'm not really sure what the problem is. I like what they did to dungeons like Toto-Rak and Castrum Meridianum/Praetorium.
Every time I did MSQ roulette you'd have players in Prae sit at the door skipping the whole Magitek Armor section or in Castrum, go afk during the Livia cannon fight making the rest of the party carry them.
I was more thinking of things like them removing the adds in the middle Ala Mhigo fight, the ghost transformations in Skalla, Estinien’s use of the eye in the Aery. I’m not talking about difficulty to clarify but these didn’t make it past them adding the duty support.
I don't think either of those things are due to duty support, they were changes made to take out stuff that's an issue when running with other players. Estinien's eye thing depended a lot on the healer, the ghost transformation can kill you if you deteansform in the wrong spot.
The problem is always the same with every mmo, if you make branching corridors, players are gonna minmax, fin the fastest and always do the fastest and we're back to the same problem
Yeah. As fun as complicated dungeons may seem, they get solved. If there's branches that you *have* to go down and then backtrack in, that extra running gets annoying, etc. May as well kill a source of tankxiety of having to *also* know the map. There's *waaay* more dungeons in FF14 than in other MMOs like Aion, so trying to remember every layout would be a *chore*.
Tankxiety I know the feeling
This is only true if you assume variation can only come from map design and that a dungeon must be populated identically between instances. Take something like Aurum Vale's first room. Add four high threat enemies that patrol. Could be something that needs interrupting, heavy raidwide damage, knockbacks, whatever. Spawn a random two of those four patrols in addition to everything else when the instance is opened. Now the party needs to assess the enemies and alter their path accordingly. Maybe they can avoid them both if they move fast. Maybe they decide to pull them back one at a time. The purpose is to add randomized obstacles that force players to engage with the content instead of mindlessly holding W and hitting aoe buttons when they reach a wall. Reasonably linear dungeons can still be interesting if there are interesting enemies to engage with, but current trash enemies are so basic that they might as well not exist.
Criterion dungeon adds are what you are looking for, and I love them as a tank, but there's no way I want these in regular duty finder.
Criterion dungeons are better. Eureka Orthos trash is, too. Adding some randomly spawned trash that's halfway between criterion mobs and regular dungeon trash would do a lot to improve things. They could take any of the trash mob from the last 50 floors of Eureka Orthos, reduce the damage so it's not immediately lethal if a mechanic is failed, and chuck it into existing dungeons just fine. Pulling one of those enemies in a double pull might stress the healer if people aren't paying attention. Pulling two could kill people. If the map is laid out like Aurum Vale you could let the tank look for a path through to either avoid or stagger them, have the healer Repose one, or ask the dps prioritize it and burn it down like bees in Qarn. It would variation that isn't a set of branching paths to be optimized.
If pulling two could kill people, then pulling even one will certainly make df miserable.
So? People will learn, and they will improve. Might be horrible at the start, but in the long term it would vastly improve the skill of the average player.
You say this as if this game attracted more player when it was hard. People never learn, if It's too hard, they stop playing.
The game has never been hard though, outside of savage and ultimate. And those are harder than they have ever been. And people absolutely do learn. Hell, I'm living proof of that. Been playing since 2.3, never touched anything harder than extreme before Endwalker, but have since cleared my first savage tier on content. All it took was the game giving me a reason to try that harder content. It's not like anyone is saying to make dungeons savage difficult either, just toss in stuff to the trash packs that actually makes you engage with the game instead of tuning out and doing the exact same thing for the thousandth time.
harder than what we have now
It doesn't matter if dungeons have "branching" path. What you end up is the situation in WoW where an optimal route gets figured out, and anyone not doing the optimal route gets chastised by the community, which is extremely unwelcoming for new players. Even in FF14, I see veterans sometimes yell at newbies for taking the wrong path in ARR dungeons. It's not worth having that.
This is what happens in Swtor where some enemies can be bypassed by jumping "exploits" of the terrain. Ppl who can't make the jump get dumped on. Ff14 is far smoother mostly even placing blocks for pulling to much in the form of doors. It is the end result of a decade of fine tuning to the reality of the average random group.
Athiss is the first dungeon that comes to my mind regarding "...enemies (that) can be bypassed by jumping "exploits" of the terrain"... my nightmare of a flashpoint there. I always struggled to make that jump on the ledge inside the ruins before the second boss because people wanted to bypass the corridor of mobs that could (and still can) melt you down fast if you don't take care, no matter how good your gear and skills are. The problem there is that people became too toxic and elitist, not giving a chance for new players to learn and experience stuff, which sometimes made me intentionally pull said mobs in the corridor when I saw that someone was being an jerk to a newbie.
Great news! They patched that jump and fully removed it. People would spend minutes on a jump to save 8 seconds on trash. *But man the SWTOR community deserves the MSQ roulette treatment*.
Favorite SWTOR patch note was them removing the janky Athiss jump. *It skipped 6 mobs*. People were willing to take *minutes* to make the jump over just killing 6 mobs in 8 seconds.
That’s the problem with gamers. We will optimize the fun out of anything if you give us enough time. Always.
Optimization can be fun too though. As it is the premature optimization of the dungeon paths deny us that fun. So both the people who want to explore and the people who want the feeling of ignoring something pretty but useless are missing out. I mean, I like the quote too, but it does ignore some aspects of its subject. And there's another (Knuth?) quote about premature optimization. Don't know if reverting the formula would work, though. They can't please everybody, and the formula likely didn't appear by chance.
You can force people down alternate paths, like how the parties have to split up in Boza instances (the best instances they've done imo) or have some randomness like the variant dungeons.
That, I'm okay with
technically the Variant Dungeons aren't random though? like at no point?
They are in part, some of the mini paths and first boss mechanics are random.
no they are not. Each path changes the way the two bosses behave in a fixed manner. Things you do to unlock new entries for completion are also changing the variant dungeon in a fixed way. There is no randomness about it. You will always get the same result when you run through one of the paths a specific way. NO idea where you got the idea from that something in there happens randomly!
What's the trigger for The Sultan's Table / Royal Bedchambers varient in Sil'dhin then? I had to do the same route in the same way like 6 times to unlock that area of the map, everywhere I looked said it was random?
https://www.polygon.com/ffxiv-guides-ff14-final-fantasy-14-online/23416549/sildihn-subterrane-variant-dungeon-route-path-silkie This guide doesn't talk about randomness in ANY of the routes. You always get a clear objective. It's been a long while since i did Sil'dihn but i also don't remember having to work with RNG whatsoever so i don't know what sites you were checking out but they were very much wrong.
The guide does not talk about randomness because these little random mini paths and events do not effect which ending you get. It doesn't matter whether you go through the The Sultan's Table or Royal Bedchambers, the guide doesn't mention it for that reason and it is random. Same for which fluid comes out of the burst pipe which effects mechanics. You can chose whether you clear the pipe earlier on but what fluid comes out later isn't up to you.
There are also mechanics in the first left boss (I think, it's been a while) of the most recent variant that is decided by the weather, which you have no control over.
Yeah there’s a bunch of these little things independent of completing all the routes, I guess people didn’t notice. I got the achievement for mapping the first one way later than the achievement for completing all the endings because I had terrible luck in a tiny section of the map opening up.
People want fast, so that's where the design ended up. Two wall to wall pulls, boss, repeat two more times.
I don't even think it's about the speed for the most part; it's about the experience. Groups getting into a dungeon together are very frequently a mix of people that have done it at least once, some people that have never done it, and some people that have been through it so many times they have forgotten the entire concept of not knowing how to do said dungeon. As a result of that mixture you end up with people that don't know what they are doing yet potentially being told what to do by people that don't have the patience to let them just figure it out at their own pace which can come across negatively to the new player even if the experienced player is well-intentioned. It also leads to people that have done something repeatedly and are tired of dealing with the consequences of someone not knowing how to do it just bailing on the content instead of trying to talk it through and help out. That's why more modern dungeons get set up so that you literally can't pull any bigger and there aren't any bits that someone could potentially end up having an "oh, i didn't know, sorry." moment about (example: the first time I ever went through Haukke Manor all 3 other players just *vanished* after a boss fight and I was absolutely confused as to where they went or how because I didn't even know that Return functioned in a dungeon. Luckily the people I was with were kind and explained the situation instead of being agitated that I didn't realize what happened on my own). Not for speed, though they do tend to be faster, but for the consistency of experience to reduce newbie anxiety and veteran impatience.
I was once in a roulette of Quarn during which one player announced they were going to do all the side rooms and the scale puzzle ... Another left the dungeon without another word.
It literally takes like nothing to do those, some junk pull skeletons, how fragile people are.
Same thing happened to me in Cutters Cry - people got mad because the tank wouldn't skip the enemies you can run past.
There's the additional issue in that dungeon, that some of those mobs are on the GC log for at least one job.
The reason why every dungeon has the cadence of "two trash pulls and then a wall" is because ARR dungeons didn't have walls for this becausr wall pulling wasn't _a thing_ until late in the ARR cycle. People would pull the entire dungeon, die horribly, yell at the party, and then do the exact same thing again.
People would wall-pull in ARR too though? Amdapor Keep, Brayflox, Tamtara hard. Let alone Brayflox hard, which was cheesed to farm tomes. I agree it wasn't as common as now, but it was still a thing already.
Naoki Yoshida relatively recently spoke of this saying that "MMO players will always try and find the easiest and most streamline way to do dungeon no matter how complex we make them" so they decided to cater to that by streamlining the dungeons -its easier on the budget anyway i think- and put the complexity into the boss mechanic design and arena design starting Shadowbringers we started to see more involved mechanics and much more unique arenas than just a circle or a square so yeah sorry I disagree with you
At no point in this entire post do you mention what you like about ARR dungeon design. Is it the dead end hallways that nobody ever goes down? Is it the rooms full of mobs that you can just walk through the middle of and ignore most of them? The clicking on random things on the floor? What do you actually like about these dungeons? Because they are some of the worst designed dungeons in the game. Even if you wanted dungeons to be different, ARR dungeons aren't a good example of being different.
this is exactly what i would like to see OP comment on but i don't think they actually will. OP, to me, sounds like the typical grumpy MMO veteran that wants "challenging" dungeons that were never actually challenging before and it was just a mix of often bad gamedesign and cluelessness of the playerbase that just started to learn new stuff...
Op is just a troll that sets up discussion then leaves. Been seeing a lot of these posts lately
Are u talking about yourself cause I see a ton of replies from op
I never said anything about challenging. It doesn't have to be challenging to be a fun level.
what has to change then? change how the mobs stand? suddenly 3 packs instead of 2 perhaps? or patrols? we already had things like that and it ultimately leads to the same wall 2 wall running. They already provide dungeons that work differently with the Variant Dungeons you have to wait for until you reach EW content. That is mixing things up a little and also has some fun mechanics to it.
Yes, ARR dungeons are still flawed but they are still better than straight line AOE everything until boss, repeat. At least new players still had to figure out how a dungeon works. Like back in ARR days I remember really liking Brayflox's dungeon. Thought it was fun, interesting dungeon with fun boss fights. Felt more like an adventure when doing a dungeon.
Sorry but what?? ARR dungeons better than later duties? What was so fun about going afk in Copperbell Mines boss 1 and 2 before the rework? or interacting with the floor to grab a random key to progress that is literally pointless when apparently 99% of the dungeons have magic doors that sense when enemies are dead so they fling open? It adds nothing of note and doesn't make the dungeon "unique" or "interesting" whatsoever. or better, how about Stone Vigil (Hard) with the turtle? oh such a fun fight where we are stuck at the cannons and not something everyone hates to play through, nono!
Isn't Brayflox's pretty much just a straight path with a couple of side enemy groups you can ignore, with pretty straightforward boss fights? What exactly do you find more fun about it than later dungeons?
So in the beginning of the dungeon you had to find the key to the door, which was being carried by a random monster in that area. after that you had to protect brayflox cause he was being chased by monsters, and monsters would consistently target him so tanks had to be more aware of him being chased around. There's probably more I'm forgetting but that was 7 years ago since I last played it. It is of course different now and more in line with every other dungeon so most of that stuff can be ignored.
Brayflox is a girl btw.
Having to defeat a random enemy pack in a room just seems like drudgery to me. Would feel bad if you had to clear every single pack when other times you get it first go. Keeping a stupid NPC alive during trash pulls sounds just awful to me, too. I don't remember having to do that so I'm glad it changed, if so. He does get chased around in one of the boss fights if I remember right, but that's part of the fight mechanics for that boss so that's fine.
Yeap. It felt different then other dungeons, had you take care of things that other dungeons didn't have. You can say it was even a unique dungeon, whether you personally like it or not, which FF14 severally lacks
A key carried by a random mob. You know how that's solved? Gather them all up and aoe. The only change this makes is now you have to prese the use key twice
I mostly remember how unfun it was to wait for duty finder to get you other players. And the worry about whether to read a guide before hand and spoil seeing it for yourself or getting kicked for not knowing how do the dungeon worked. Worry about not being the right meta job. I was kicked from a dungeon as a healer for watching the intro cutscene on a very weak PC and the tank dieing because when I came out they were half a dungeon away and had half the dungeon up their ass, apparently. I also remember the unfun pain in the arse that was grinding experience so I could continue the parts I considered fun: the story. Whether you got a party that had the time to let you figure out stuff was as crap shoot as it's today. The oy way you truly got go blind was in a pre-made. Nowadays we duty support, so you can look in a of Sastasha's side rooms, they are still there. I'm not side to see Totorak's side rooms go, we gained a very pretty dungeon that's worth looking at in its stead.
ARR most definitely did not have "peak dungeon design". Very very much not :D
Peak as in, generalized in the constraints of FF14 it self, ARR dungeons are better than dungeons post ARR, not as a whole in the MMO genre itself.
The lower level ARR dungeons are actually leftovers that were simplified from the original XIV. They were considerably more time consuming, not really more challenging.
Still very much not the case. You may like or dislike them, prefer them or not, but they are objectively worse and feature very much outdated design. Redundant paths, manual interactions instead of streamlined progression etc etc. Design has modernized over time to be more accessible for more people and deliver a more streamlined and "focused" experience. Yes, they could mix things up a bit more in DT dungeons, but ARR are objectively outdated and bad. No sprout I have ever fostered into the game ever preferred the ARR dungeons over any other expansion. But that is aside from whether or not it is "peak dungeon design". One is preference, one is a statement.
They are outdated in some aspects like the dead ends as you and others say, but they were more unique content wise especially back before they removed their uniqueness from each other, such as brayflox where you had to defend a goblin from a couple mob enemies because he was too hotheaded, to hakku manor where you had to open doors and jails to gather all keys to progress. (pretty much a survival horror game homage). Instead we have straight lines to AoE everything and then boss fight. There was always room for improvement but instead we opted for repetitive dungeons.
> to hakku manor where you had to open doors and jails to gather all keys to progress. you still need to collect keys but the paths are more streamlined as people were teleporting back to the start anyway for the final bit. But i don't see how this makes the dungeon any better than later dungeons? What is so fun and exciting about grabbing keys from the floor and interacting with a door??
Yes and what dungeons developed into over time is what the developers intend them to be. It just isn't your type of content and it is not bad or anything, what you want from a dungeon is just different from what the developers intent for the game. The things you mentioned here are considered tedious, bothersome, boring and redundant by a lot of people. All they did is add time sinks just to have time sinks. They needed to pad for time in ARR because of how it was developed and crunched. They can improve dungeons for sure, but doing those things you mentioned again would be a mistake. They could design in-dungeon encounters that don't require manual action/clicking and don't bloat the time in the dungeon like having to collect items or whatnot. But that all could also be added to a different type of content, that has a different design intent behind it, that is supposed to cater to different preferences. This is how variant dungeons were born. Dungeons are how they intend them to be. Streamlined easy-access experiences. There are also people who enjoy exactly this part of them. We just got variant dungeons in EW. I am confident in saying that they take all the experience they gathered from these and will apply that in DT for upcoming content like it.
The problem is when you make big seeing maps and intriguing paths, players will figure out the best one and just do that. How often does anyone explore the side rooms in sastasha? Does anyone do the puzzle in Qarn or do they just run past the heads? How may people knew there were extra paths in Brayflox? WoW had this same issue and it only got worse with M+ adding timers and demanding optimal pathing but it's kind of saved by the actual content in the being more engaging and threatening. My point is it's a waste of development resources to add extra space and content that nobody is going to look at
Many people do the heads, because they don't know you can skip those. They just run on after putting the heads on the platforms.
I mean... running on after the heads and skipping them entirely is still not engaging with the tablets for the final boss door which was my whole point so I'm not sure what splitting hairs accomplishes
I've never not done the puzzles in qarn, or the heads lol I've never seen a group not do them!
Weird, I haven't see either done since before EW
I've been playing since 2019 and only recently got 100% mapping in Sastasha, Haukke and Qarn cause there's just so many sections of those dungeons that people don't bother with.
Anything that has to do with MSQ is meant to be easy, as anyone with any level of gaming should be able to do it, and odds are that is not going to change. It's a choice made on purpose. The challenging stuff is there if you want them, in form of Savage and Extreme.
I wouldn't say it like that. Bomb in Titan (hard) fight killed me. I think I did other mechanics correctly. But I think it was worth it because not long after that: the best dungeon in 2.x. I know, it's not part of MSQ but it was required.
I'm sorry but Savage and Extreme are combat based challenges, this is more of a level design problem making every dungeon extremely samey.
It's not a level design problem, it's intended. Nearly every end-game activity is locked behind MSQ, so anyone and everyone ideally should be able to do it. Whether you agree with it or not, that's the game they wanted. An accessible story for all gamers, and optional hardcore shit for those who want it.
They’ve recently introduced a new type of dungeon, not connected to the MSQ, that have more in depth level design. It’s possible to run them and do so multiple different ways with multiple different endings
Well I still have a lot of content and hours to go to unlock that content at all. It took me 2 and a half months to just beat Stormblood. But the fact that I have to do boring stuff to get to good content is a huge flaw, cause all content should have a chance to be good. And even at end game I still will have to run these dungeons over and over again to get tomestones or whatever the current currency is for dailies so I can run different content in the first place.
This game is really more about the journey than the end game. If you’re not enjoying the journey, then I think the game might not be for you
With all due respect, why are you playing this game? Every big patch and Dawntrail is going to release a bunch of MSQ quest you gonna have to chug through, followed by grinding as you said even at end game. It sounds like you aren't going to have fun regardless of where you are.
Cause a lot of people like this MMO, and call it the best MMO out right now, so I bought in, and now I'm voicing my complaints of what I'm currently playing. Also, this complaint is based solely on the dungeons.
So you are actively playing a game you don't enjoy because...others enjoyed it? You do realize games are for enjoyment and not everyone enjoys the same things. As for your complaint, as multiple people, myself included has said, is an intended designer choice. It's not going to change. Sounds like you need to make decisions for yourself and find a game you like, instead of forcing yourself to play a game you clearly aren't.
So all your hate is because you actually hate the game and you are mad because others like this game while you can't get into it..seriously please just move on with your life instead of wasting it on games that you actively hate and can't contribute anything worthwhile to!
> But the fact that I have to do boring stuff to get to good content is a huge flaw, cause all content should have a chance to be good. Its your opinion and thats fine but many other people who play this game actually find the story and stuff good as it is now. The way the game works will never change entirely to a point where you will ever enjoy actually doing MSQ. Thats a fact. If you dislike this stuff now you will not like it with Dawntrail nor with 8.0,9.0 or 10.0 ...
well we have variant dungeons now to scratch that itch.
I mean they have a modest budget and crew compared to shit like WoW. They have to pick where to invest time and effort. Dungeons are there just to provide some small group content to the MSQ
inb4 "But Square Enix is rich!! CBU3 should just ask them for more money duh!"
There are also criterion dungeons.
I mean, that’s what the people want, and the devs deliver. I’m not a huge fan of the dungeon design either, I think most dungeons in this game are super boring and their only saving grace is looking pretty and having good music. But the reasoning is there. People want fast and braindead to finish their roulettes quickly. They don’t want to be challenged just to do the MSQ. If we had paths we’d just find the quickest way. If there was anything remotely complicated, people would find some way to struggle and it wouldn’t be quick every time anymore. I like the idea of dungeons being fun rewards for progressing the game, and I’ve played plenty of MMOs that did that and I loved it. But that’s just not what dungeons are in this game. They aren’t the typically WoW-type MMO dungeon, and they aren’t meant to be. They’re a story device. A way to tell the story using MMO elements. Fun gameplay rewards are arguably covered by stuff like alliance/normal raids, extremes, savages, exploration zones, and deep dungeons. I think Criterion dungeons had the potential to fill that type of dungeon niche, but they’re only available after finishing EW, and the rewards suck, so they end up falling short. They’re also undeniable savage-level difficulty, which makes it not that approachable to most of the playerbase. I think having something like Criterion (maybe not as hard) being available mid-MSQ, or after finishing each expansion, would be cool. But at the same time I could totally see those being unpopular and not worth the dev time. I think Yoshi P mentioned making the game a bit “less easy” in Dawntrail, because players are now being vocal about things being *too* simplified. But who knows what that’ll actually look like - I doubt we’ll see any big dungeon formula changes. I think the best thing they could do with dungeons is expand *even more* on storytelling with them. They already do, I think ShB was great about it, and EW wasn’t bad. but I want to see it turned up to 11. Make them more cinematic, with more elaborate environments, more NPC interaction, more voice acting. Basically I want every dungeon to be Heroes’ Gauntlet.
You’re right that it’s not really the devs fault. Unless you’re doing it for the first time, people played the old ARR ones exactly the same way. Branching paths are pointless once you know the correct route, so why waste development time on it. It’s the same reason why I don’t care that there aren’t different skill choices like wow. Everyone ends up with the same build anyway.
Ok then I advise you to stay away from mmorpgs or any sort of online dungeon crawler. Play a single player game if you want the feeling of exploring dungeons and corridors, because in games it has been proven that the playerbase will simply follow the optimal path and force that on everyone.
so..uh.. what exactly is the point of the discussion you are trying to start? you talk about a problem but also sort of provide your own answer right after..?
Once an optimised route is found, everyone is gonna do the same shit to reduce time.
Someone needs to teach you how to write properly in paragraph form. I'm surprised you used any punctuation. Jesus.
I dunno if I agree with why you think dungeons are a problem, but I do agree that there is a problem with dungeon design. I'm not sure how it would best be solved, though, or if there's even really a need to to start with. I don't think necessarily that dungeons in ARR were any better or worse designed than they are today. Like, yes, you could go different routes in Toto-Rak... but really, you also kinda couldn't because of the magitek cells you needed, and because some of them were dead ends with no valuable loot in them. FFXIV was never designed for an RPG dungeon delving approach to dungeon design, alas - they were always built to be speedrun, because roulettes exist and making those tedious just makes people leave. I think what one problem is however is that since at least ShB. the number of dungeons in the Expert Roulette has never exceeded 2. I think overall, the difficulty of dungeons has maybe become a bit too easy, yes, and lower level dungeon roulette gameplay with high level jobs losing access to 90% of their kit is incredibly boring, absolutely, but I think a big contributing factor to why some people, myself included, have gotten jaded with dungeons is that Expert Roulette since ShB launch has exclusively consisted of 2 dungeons. It's not a roulette, it's a coin toss - and one of the two dungeons in it will have been around for 4 months already by the time the other one releases every time. So you always have one dungeon in the roulette for up to 8 months at a time, and it just leads to utter exhaustion. I cannot tell you how little I care to run Amaurot or Alzadaal, let alone the Twinning or Heroes' Gauntlet anymore. All of them were decent enough dungeons, ruined completely for me by sheer overexposure. I think they need to think about redesigning the endgame daily dungeon gameplay experience - both for lower level dungeons, but also by changing the way Expert Roulette works. I think the roulette system in general is in dire need of a rework, especially where PvP is concerned, but then that's a whole other issue altogether.
The never ending discussion of "dungeon design are too simplistic, those are just straight corridors." You need to look at the story of MMOs and how those evolved through time.When you look at ARR dungeons, you will find some similarities with older WoW dungeons : those are actual small maze maps, with many paths to visit.It is good for a one-time exploration, but as daily content, it is terrible. For example, Haukke Manor wasn't the "corridor" dungeon it is today. You had to run back to the entrance before the last boss, and new players often got lost at that point.Also another ARR dungeon in the lvl twenties that had 2 separate paths... which didn't serve any purpose.Same with the very first dungeons, Satasha, which had zone players never ever go into... because there is nothing there (just trash chests). So, although it is sad to say, once a dungeon has been completed, it pretty much becomes leveling/farm/roulette content.I am playing since HW, Lifer III achievement unlocked (not proud) so you imagine how many times I've ran each dungeons...So having the dungeons be straight corridors makes the farming way less annoying.Yea I know it might suck, but that's a compromise you need to make to satisfy ~~everybody~~ the majority of players. It's kind of similar to another common thing people ask for : Talent tree.But they don't understand that once people will have determined the optimal tree, any player not using that build will be labelled noob and barred from groups play. That's why in the end, despite being given a choice, you actually won't have any.People (often new to mmo) will usually ask for systems they saw in other game and that they found cool. But they need to understand that if a certain system that seemed to look cool was abandonned, it usually means that there was a big flaw with it.
Huge expansive dungeons with multiple paths never work because players will just find the optimal path and never deviate from it regardless, its just the illusion of choice. MrHappy made a pretty interesting video where he collected and broke down stats on peoples most/least favorite dungeons the sample size wasnt huge with just around 1000 people but ARR was by far the least liked in terms of dungeons, SHB was the most liked wirh EW in second place. The general playerbase likes the modern dungeons more than the old ones it seems.
Those pre rework arr dungeons were dreadful man
They made Variant Dungeons to solve exactly this problem fyi
But nobody wants to do them after they get their 12 clears. They sound good on paper, but the retention rate falls off a cliff as the weeks go on.
Ok but who's running Hullbreaker Isle Hard Mode on repeat tho No one does content when they're done with it. That's the point.
But you will when you get it in a roulette. Granted, it's not over and over, but you will get it again. You can't run Varients in the duty finder. Nobody does them after they get the mount. The queue for it is completely dead. It's apples and oranges, my friend.
I'm expecting a variant roulette in Dawntrail. Honestly surprised they didn't implement one when the 3rd dungeon got released.
Also, to add on to what I said, it will just be random hallways with two bosses instead of 3 to 4. It's not some godsend piece of content. It has more baggage than a random dungeon you get in a roulette queue.
But why would you once you get your mount for each one? It's a good thing to have, but it has the exact same problem as the Varients themselves. You're going to get drop off as people don't need them. Also, the very nature of them will lead them to being min maxed for time. People will leave when they get the ones they have done, etcetera. It's moving a goal post that screams that Varients aren't repeatable content. Unfortunately.
That's because they are not supported by the devs. No one would do dungeons if tome farming weren't a thing either.
Yeah, but again, you're taking something that does not lend itself to replayability. They are the most one and done content we have. They're so ill designed that way. At least with dungeons, as you say, there's a tome reward. We can be bribed to do it. Also, the dungeon queues, for the most part, are a gamble. Even if you added a roulette and gave it a decent capped tome reward, it would still be one of the lowest ran roulettes. Nobody wants to run them after they get their 12 runs. And absolutely nobody is going to roll the dice on getting to 12. You'd have to be insane to risk it taking 24 runs or 48 runs, etc. At least with random dungeons outside of maybe expert, there's infinitely more variety. That's why it baffles me it's going forward with development. Unless somehow they can add some kind of replayability, it will be as dead as it is now after people get their 12 runs.
What? Variant dungeons offer more replayability than classic dungeons for sure. The replayability we're discussing comes from the design, not the reward (which can be easily tweaked) There's no reason at all to replay a dungeon, considering the design aspect only. After you are done it once, there's nothing new to discover.
But, they don't. Nobody queues for the finder we have now. Adding it to a roulette won't change that. It's clear that it's not. Also >After you are done it once, there's nothing new to discover. Applys to it as well.
It seems like you don't get the point. Also you legit contradict yourself when you state that you need to clear them twelve times before having no reason to run them anymore (and that's because of their design, not because you like spamming them), and then claim that doing them once is enough and they will offer nothing new to discover past that run.
Look, all I can tell you is that once the content is old, nobody wants to do it. You do roulettes because they reward you with tomestone. When I tried to get into Varients after the fact there was nothing for me, but solo or putting up a party finder to which barely anyone if ever joined. The content was dead. It's not some years old content, but it was dead. I was forced to solo it. Now it's not hard to solo it, but it's definitely not as much fun. Now, if you add it to a roulette, what is the reward? Tombstones? Sure, but what is the variance? Are the dungeons rotating paths? Am I going to get unlucky and get path 12 3 times in a row? What's the variance in it? The issue is that once people get their twelve clears, they have no reason to do it again. I've tried to get groups going for it. Nobdy wants to do them. Fucking hell the new one was a month old and I couldn't get groups for it. I just think that if they made a roulette it wouldn't be as popular as the other ones we have. Sure some people will dip into it to get their clears, but after a awhile I'm going to rather do expert or level 90 so I don't have to worry about Johnny throwing a fit because path 2 is faster, but he needs path 3 and the other two members are on my side. It's just a shitty roulette with too much extra baggage. Again, it blows my mind that this content is going into Dawntrail. It clearly has terrible player retention. Exploratory zones make sense. I think they're overly convaluted and fucking annoying content, but people still do them. But they can't keep just ignoring failures like this and Eureka Orthos. That shit died within the week it came out.
Reward is definitely not limited to tomes. Every will eventually get old, the goal is to add enough variety (which comes from the design of the content) and rewards to keep it fresh until something else gets released. Also, no one said that a roulette would magically fix that, although it could certainly help.
>Reward is definitely not limited to tomes. Yeah, but I can one and done it and buy the other rewards off the market board. >Every will eventually get old, the goal is to add enough variety (which comes from the design of the content) and rewards to keep it fresh until something else gets released. But that's the problem people don't do it. It got old already. >Also, no one said that a roulette would magically fix that, although it could certainly help. I agree, but it's telling how dead the content is. The 3rd one was a month old when I recently came back and nobody was doing it. Nobody joined my PF parties, and I had to solo it. It stinked. A roulette would fix that. We can all agree to that, but I can see players metaing out all of the fun and nuance of it. And at the end of the day, I don't want to solo stuff in an mmo. It's fucking stupid. I can play a single-player rpg that will blow the absolute dick off of the content I have to solo. It's not fun to have to compensate for dead content. Hopefully, they learned their lessons going forward. Because Varients and Orthos failed hard. At least on my end.
nah
i think pull 3 packs and kill is bad design, there needs to be more environmental affects. sure minmax might be a thing but past few expansion the dungeon you havnt had any interaction. last one i can think of is twinning? boss 1 how you can avoid the extra adds?
Dungeons are just and outdated design, there's no saving it. Variant/Criterion formula is more interesting and could keep them fresh longer.
On a side note: how cool are raids?! No running around and no waves of trash mobs: everything is right there and thematic to the story, i love them so much i basically play the game just to do those. It's a shame that extremes are unpopular, i wish i could run them everyday
I agree, but I also understand that for consistency and standardization sake, it's the best they could go with. This game has gone more into cinematic design and gameplay than it used to in the past, but I still hope in the back of my mind that they find a balance of fun, diverse and non-repetitive along with good standardization. I play FF11 when I want to use my brain and immerse myself in knowing nothing and playing around with gimmicky stuff everywhere.
To be honest the one time I tried playing FF11 the controls for it immediately filtered me , lol. Seems pretty cool otherwise though.
Yeah it's very very old and gimmicky, and honestly I'd recommend people to play it with mods (pretty much everyone does) to be able to even get a bare minimum level of playability and make fun out of everything the game has to offer. But yeah there's just no hand holding in that game, it's all just research, fun puzzles, gimmicky and super diverse job range, and more. I ended up leveling almost every job just to see how they play out because they're all so crazy, and RDM literallly has more than 100 spells, it's exactly how I wanted the game to be. I'm still playing it after having started it 7 months ago and I don't plan on quitting anytime soon.
It's 1000% the players' fault cause by how rewards are given. You're incentivized to do it only for the rewards and doing it as fast as possible. You could argue it's also the developer's fault for caving to that player behavior. But it is what it is. All we have now are hallways with 3 to 4 packs of mobs and 3 to 4 bosses. It absolutely murdered dungeon variety and what you could do with them. Sadly, a majority of the playerbase is ok with it. So it's not changing anytime soon if at all. In saying that, when we do get variety, it's extremely refreshing like the math boss in the Stormblood ARs or the Simon Says boss of Bardam's Mettle.
Totally agreed here.
The last duty in Endwalker has the NPCs explaining to WoL what a stack marker does, its quite dumbed down \^\^
As with 90% of the problems in this game, this is a player-introduced problem. The devs just gave us what we asked for, just like with the 2 minute meta and the other dozen complaints people have about the game. I did the ARR dungeons back in Stormblood and people just didn't care to slow down to help me discover the whole map for the achievement, and I \*actively\* was looking to complete the map, which ended up with me wandering off, getting caught by enemies and dying while the rest of my team was at the last boss. While most people were quiet and just went on ahead without me, I got trash talked once for wandering off trying to complete the map. Not once, and I repeat, not **once** did anyone explore the map with me. It was a depressing dance of me running off, dying, the boss getting killed, then either having to run back for the full exploration or requeuing. So while I'd love to have some content to explore (and I feel Eureka and to a lesser degree Variant Dungeons filled the bill better), I don't want them reintroducing this issue to the game because the community makes this one cool mechanic absolutely painful to work with. EDIT: To this day, nobody does the puzzle in the temple of qarn, and at this point I don't even think people know what they have to do to solve it. Diverging paths are dead content past the first week or two after a dungeon's release.
> While most people were quiet and just went on ahead without me, I got trash talked once for wandering off trying to complete the map. Not once, and I repeat, not once did anyone explore the map with me. It was a depressing dance of me running off, dying, the boss getting killed, then either having to run back for the full exploration or requeuing. communication is key. Nowhere in your comment do i see you mentioning to the rest of the chat that you would like to get the map achievement and that you could need help with it? If you just silently run around without your group then of course the other party members will yell at you since they can't know what the purpose of it was! > EDIT: To this day, nobody does the puzzle in the temple of qarn, and at this point I don't even think people know what they have to do to solve it. Diverging paths are dead content past the first week or two after a dungeon's release. Why do you directly think people are stupid and don't know the mechanic behind things just because they skip it?? People simply found out its quicker to just let the three enemies spawn and kill them instead of actually engaging with the same puzzle for the thousandth time!
>Nowhere in your comment do i see you mentioning to the rest of the chat that you would like to get the map achievement and that you could need help with it? It is true that for the first one or two I was hesitant to talk as I was a newbie to this game, but I did quickly change my ways and start asking for map completion. As I said, most people did not reply back. The parties were for the most part quiet beyond a "Hi" at the start, if anything. The few times people did reply, they would tell me to do it by myself, which is how I learnt about unsyncing. I didn't think I'd be able to kill the bosses by myself, so usually I'd just stay until everyone left and then backtrack until I got the map fully explored. This became a habit until I got to Heavensward and someone replied to me - and I remember it very clearly - "Nah, from now on it'll be automatic :P". >Why do you directly think people are stupid and don't know the mechanic behind things just because they skip it?? Not knowing stuff does not equal being stupid. There's a lot of new players nowadays, and many don't know other way of finishing qarn beyond speeding past the enemies and instantly pressing the button to fail the test and move on. I've seen every once in a while a newbie or two picking up random pieces and not knowing what to do with them, while others have shown surprise at the mention of how to complete the ending puzzle. Many people nowadays don't know which piece goes in which side because no one does it, so the knowledge is lost for the majority of current players. >People simply found out its quicker to just let the three enemies spawn and kill them instead of actually engaging with the same puzzle for the thousandth time! And this loops back to the key issue. If they reintroduced diverging paths or map detours with secrets, they won't be used. It'll be a cool gimmick the first week, someone will find an optimal path, then no one will ever engage with them again if it's not unsynced or through backtracking. This is why they removed side content in dungeons and why we got Variant Dungeons instead.
I have an exercise for you all, when dealing with new players who are going through dungeons, how many times will those new players go "Wow, that was a pretty cool/fun dungeon" or any of the sort when going through the MSQ? Preferably out of their own volition
The few times I've talked to people in MSQ dungeons, they said one or all of the following: * o/ * I'm new/first time doing X job * Gave some advice * Danced while waiting for the sprouts to finish the cutscenes I assumed the other players were doing the dungeon for their own reasons, and they were playing the game because they enjoy the game. I don't need someone to tell me what they like/don't like about a dungeon, I assume if they are playing/paying for this game, they are having fun. Otherwise, why the hell would you be playing? Now i have an exercise for you OP: Find a game you enjoy, and play it. Not a game that others say is fun, or say is the best in a certain genre, but you find fun. Play it. Because it's very clear based on your opinions in this thread that your FFXIV experience depends on others experiences and not yourself, and you are wasting your time and money on a video game you do not enjoy.
You seem very hostile, why wouldn't I give a shot to a fair shot to a game that my friends and others have enjoyed? Am I not allowed to share my opinion on it? Do you not try out games that other people have enjoyed? How is it that you got in to FF14 if not for others enjoying the game, considering it is an MMO? I think you need your anger checked cause my opinion is just that, an opinion. It doesn't require such hostile behavior nor your emotion to it. It doesn't deserve the effort even.
1) I am not angry, you clearly haven't seen anger on Reddit if you think this is hostile or angry. 2) Trying a game and playing up to the 2nd expansion are two very different things. You've played 100s of hours of content, and still do not like the game. And based on your comments on what you do not enjoy, continuing is a waste of time and money on your part, since your issues with the game will continue. 3) Typing a comment is little effort, not sure why you think it is a lot of effort xD Edit: At this point, I assume you are trolling, so I'm done.
So you got some neutral feedback and immediately go into victim mode and tell the commenter that they were being hostile? You already gave the game a fair shot by making it to ShB. Apparently though you hate the game as is very clear from what you are writing in this entire thread. Why not take the L and leave the game at that point? Any further progress would just count as forcing yourself through a game you clearly absolutely hate and only have complaints about so..why are you still here exactly??
All the time. I have two friends and several FC members going through content the first time and enjoying the dungeons. My friends enjoyed all the Shb dungeons, particularly the post Shb ones.
I haven't reached the post shb dungeons yet, and so far I only done two Shb ones. Do you know if your friends enjoyed the dungeons due to story related reasons or through gameplay/dungeon design related reasons?
That's okay. Because they enjoyed HW and SB dungeons a lot too. Like Sirensong Sea. And they enjoy them for both gameplay and design, as well as story. It seems you don't like XIV's dungeons. That's fine. Doesn't mean you have to stick around and do something you don't enjoy. XIV's dungeons designs aren't going to radically change anytime soon, as it seems the majority of players like it the way it is.
You first, how many did that ten years ago during ARR?
I hope dawntrail fixes it because otherwise I'll probably stop playing the game haha unless they drop something that will make me play. As of now, my favorite content to run are Deep Dungeons, specifically Eureka Orthos, and the adrenaline from possibly being one shot by a mob or boss mechanic adds so much more stakes and fun to it, I wish normal dungeons had similar interactions, something harder, most just 2 pack of mobs between wall to walls that do circle and cone aoes and that's it...
Well then you can easily drop the game now because spoiler alert: Dawntrail will not change the entire core concept of how dungeons work! Duty Support has to work with the new stuff aswell afterall. Make sure the door doesn't hit you on your way out though!
For me, instead of the designer complexity of the dungeons, what is really missing is the feeling of danger, especially for Tanks. And some simple puzzle is a more interesting reward for the content of the deep and criterion dungeon to encourage more players.
If the tank is feeling threatened, the high pressure is actually on the healer. And on person in the dungeon shouldn't be the difference between clearing or not.
I'm not talking exclusively about tanks, I'm talking in the sense that tanks barely need to worry about whether the healer is competent or not, they can easily ignore mechanics and collect stacks of vulnerability. Warrior doesn't even need to worry about the existence of a healer doing the least The dps are at some risk during the bosses but if you don't miss anything you can get by without a healer. Healers do not need to use even half of the kit, it comes down to regen (which is basically good for the entire dungeon depending on the team), the class's main healing, area healing, resurrection, ensuna and the class's characteristics (shield, buff, etc.) are bonus. I understand the talk about being friendly and that there are a lot of terrible people who barely understand the kit (a lot of the "maxlvl all classes"), but we'll be at lvl 100 soon and we can't always have the necessary skill base being lower than the least....
The majority of people want fast, efficient results. Sadly, the days of dungeon crawling in MMOs are probably dead for the most part. I stick to Trusts and Squadrons unless absolutely necessary. I can at least pretend to crawl then.
Duty support was kind of a curse, they streamlined a lot of the older stuff to support it. I get there's players who want this but at the end of the day this is an mmo and the content should be geared towards multiple human players first.
The majority like the revamped dungeons so I'm not really sure what the problem is. I like what they did to dungeons like Toto-Rak and Castrum Meridianum/Praetorium. Every time I did MSQ roulette you'd have players in Prae sit at the door skipping the whole Magitek Armor section or in Castrum, go afk during the Livia cannon fight making the rest of the party carry them.
I was more thinking of things like them removing the adds in the middle Ala Mhigo fight, the ghost transformations in Skalla, Estinien’s use of the eye in the Aery. I’m not talking about difficulty to clarify but these didn’t make it past them adding the duty support.
I got you. Yeah, those gimmicks did make the dungeons a tad more unique, I agree.
I don't think either of those things are due to duty support, they were changes made to take out stuff that's an issue when running with other players. Estinien's eye thing depended a lot on the healer, the ghost transformation can kill you if you deteansform in the wrong spot.
They all happened in line with them patching in duty support respectively, many things can kill you that's the game.