Unpopular Opinion: Dungeon design has been bad for a long time

[Hitori]

While the aesthetics of the dungeons is wonderful, every single one boils down to the exact same formula.

Long hallway, aoe pull / open area, long hall way, aoe pull / open area, boss. Repeat 3 - 4x.

That's it. There's no variation, no patrols, no choices. I get SO bored doing dungeons after the first few times.

I made a thread last month about the lack of challenge in this game, and dungeons are another example of that. If my only challenge is Savage raids, that's just piss poor design. I want to get behind my character and feel the impact of their level growth, but getting new dungeon gear and levels is almost meaningless now.

Why can't we have leveling content that has SOME level of challenge?

[Kaethra]

MMO game philosophy for the last 15 years maintains that leveling content is a sort of long 'tutorial'. Its meant to show the very basics (and I mean VERY BASIC) of what is expected of you while not serving as a barrier. Understand that I don't really agree with this, I'm just pointing it out.

The way it used to work in Everquest and early World of Warcraft (prior to Lich King) is you would have static groups of mobs tactically placed in a way that meant pulling them was part of the challenge. In addition like you mentioned there were patrols that had to be accounted for as well so that you did not double pull.

But there were two roles available that have been long since omitted. Puller (was not always the Main Tank, frequently wasn't) and your Support/Crowd Control. Sometimes one class could fulfill both those roles, but not always. In 2.0 we had a minor use of CC with Repose and Sleep. I remember using them in dungeons like Wanderer's Palace, and even Stone Vigil. There was a few pulls in the latter that were quite devastating to tanks. Mainly the three mini dragon pull that could pull a fourth and the two sets of trio of ice sprites.

I personally would like to see the art of pulling come back and CC to become a thing again as well. I'm not opposed even to a fourth role of Support being added as well, with possibility of increasing group size to 5 or 6 to account.

The other issue there is with dungeon design is target prioritization. Other games have in the past used very dangerous mobs in groups that you wanted to take down or CC. Usually some sort of Wizard/Rogue type mob that could inflict high amounts of damage or inflict the party with debuffs or CC itself. Imagine if you did a Wall to Wall pull and one or two of the mobs would target the healer and sleep them. You would either want to burn them down first, CC them yourself, or be prepared to use a cure effect/potion on your healer.

Right now at least in Amourot they do have mobs that are slightly more dangerous because of AOEs they do, but telegraphed ground based marker AOEs are easily avoidable.

[Shurrikhan]

MMO game philosophy for the last 15 years maintains that leveling content is a sort of long 'tutorial'.

1. Dungeons include, but are not limited to, leveling content. What of level-cap dungeons?
2. Tutorials tend to add elements of difficulty cumulatively with the intent of expanding practical knowledge and means of engagement. Dungeons do not have cumulative difficulty, but instead regress and leap arbitrarily, with no provable accordant learning purpose over their course, only via select dungeons.

[Alucard135]

While the aesthetics of the dungeons is wonderful, every single one boils down to the exact same formula.

Long hallway, aoe pull / open area, long hall way, aoe pull / open area, boss. Repeat 3 - 4x.

That's it. There's no variation, no patrols, no choices. I get SO bored doing dungeons after the first few times.

I made a thread last month about the lack of challenge in this game, and dungeons are another example of that. If my only challenge is Savage raids, that's just piss poor design. I want to get behind my character and feel the impact of their level growth, but getting new dungeon gear and levels is almost meaningless now.

Why can't we have leveling content that has SOME level of challenge?

You're not the only who gets bored to death from the dungeons we have. That's why Anima was a nightmare to me. But there are a lot that like that style of dungeons. So they're not gonna change from that.

BA was an excellent change from that style imo and hopefully we get more content like that.

[Enla]

To be fair, even when they gave us choices the community ended up settling for the 'right way' to do things. Toto-Rak comes to mind as a dungeon with a couple paths and places to explore, but if you so much as go the 'wrong way' in there it can lead to a fight. If they're going to allow us more freedom with dungeons they're going to have to ensure that the choices are all of equal merit - but even then people will doubtless decide that one route is better.

[Rilifane]

Why can't we have leveling content that has SOME level of challenge?

Because the MSQ is a/ the reason for many people to play FFXIV and Square Enix doesn't want to gate the story behind too much difficulty. And since dungeons are part of it, they're mostly tuned in a way that even four bad players are mostly able to clear them. The more good players in a group, the faster the clear.
I don't agree with this sort of philosophy and I don't think it's doing the player community any favors but that is what they've been sticking to so far.

Overall I'd prefer shorter dungeons but with more tactically challenging mob groups where the way when and how you pull which group exactly and cc has an impact.
That means more dmg output overall so you can't pull big, adding non-ccable highly dangerous mobs to many groups which buff/ heal others or channel something really nasty and are priority targets so you don't just aoe everything down, mobs fleeing at low health into the nearest pack so you have to intercept or deal with the consequences of an accidental second pull and adding ccable highly annoying/dangerous mobs (escp. enemy healers etc) that should be cc'ed if possible, otherwise focused down.
So the overall time spent in dungeons wouldn't change that much but it would include more tactical gameplay.

But that's just my preference, I've seen several people state on various occasions that they have no interest in more tactically challenging leveling dungeons. They like to breeze through.

[Gaethan_Tessula]

To be fair, even when they gave us choices the community ended up settling for the 'right way' to do things. Toto-Rak comes to mind as a dungeon with a couple paths and places to explore, but if you so much as go the 'wrong way' in there it can lead to a fight. If they're going to allow us more freedom with dungeons they're going to have to ensure that the choices are all of equal merit - but even then people will doubtless decide that one route is better.

It doesn't even need to be pathing freedom though. Just including mobs that have to be interrupted or CC'd, or else things get hairy fast, would be appreciated.

Some of the mobs in ShB try to do that. Namely the reptoids with dmg up buffs in Twinning and the things in Gulg and Anyder that do raidwide AoE's, but none of them are things healers can't override with a modicum of extra effort.

Because the MSQ is a/ the reason for many people to play FFXIV and Square Enix doesn't want to gate the story behind too much difficulty. And since dungeons are part of it, they're mostly tuned in a way that even four bad players are mostly able to clear them. The more good players in a group, the faster the clear.

... I've seen several people state on various occasions that they have no interest in more tactically challenging leveling dungeons. They like to breeze through.

Sure, keep anything MSQ required EZ-PZ, but I don't see why optional 4-man content can't be made more involved.

[Neri]

We had, it was called Pharos Sirius, not anymore though, due to reason.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The problem with offering options is that people will go straight for the path of least resistance. Unless there's some kind of incredible reward for it, but then people who already have it won't want to bother doing it again, so anyone who's late to the party is screwed.

[TheForce]

Finally somebody said it...I also would like to see some innovation in dungeon design going forward