Bring back crowd control. Bring back branching dungeons. Bring back ADVENTURE.

So from my understanding of this thread:

We don’t want dungeons to have decision making, or difficult enemies, or enemies that require specific strategies to defeat, or enemy abilities that have an effect beyond ‘deals direct damage’, and we don’t want access to any sort of skill that might impede the enemy in some way?

I mean, I’m not claiming these are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ wants; if that’s what people want then it’s not my place to try and suggest otherwise. Personally I would like to see generic dungeons be more engaging in general though. That doesn’t mean they have to have super difficult enemies or tons of branching paths, but I’d like to see them be a bit less simplistic in terms of going through them. I feel like dungeons currently are tuned to the absolute bottom limit of effort, which is fine, but I’d like to at least have to put in a modicum of effort when playing a video game (otherwise it’s like, ‘this game may as well be playing itself automatically’).

I mean, logically isn’t player input redundant anyway? It would be faster and more efficient if it was entirely automated, since all it technically does is give an illusion of choice anyway. So the question ends up being ‘where is the limit?’ with how ‘efficient’ we want the game to be. At what point do things go from being ‘simplistic’ to just being ‘boring’? And at what point do we continue/stop removing ‘pointless’ mechanics like crowd control, healing, non-DPS party buffs, enemy abilities, etc etc?

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Originally Posted by Connor

We don’t want dungeons to have decision making, or difficult enemies, or enemies that require specific strategies to defeat, or enemy abilities that have an effect beyond ‘deals direct damage’, and we don’t want access to any sort of skill that might impede the enemy in some way?

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And yet, we blame SE for the extreme streamlining of the game :p

I really like the branches suggestion. As for "nobody likes Toto Rak" and "nobody explored the old dungeons", nobody is certainly not true. I for one liked Toto Rak and explored those dungeons fully, both back in the day and now with bleh squadron, and also DF parties back then opened all chests and all, in my experience.

I find these two suggestions particularly good:

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Originally Posted by manamoppet

Since Trusts became a thing in 5.0, SqE could experiment with more explorable dungeons with options, and it would be possible to use Trusts, either specifically made for that dungeon (e.g. if dungeon isn't msq, but optional), or the normal Trusts (if msq).

Another thing they could do, could be that the dungeon could have different NPCs you meet throughout that may help you like with the Ghimlyt Dark, or slightly hinder you (not-quite-Trust escort mission? Probably not a popular idea).

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Do it for MSQ dungeons and then people can run it with trusts. So a fast route with randoms and at the same time being able to go as we want to with trusts.

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Random parties can take the shortest route, or whoever wants to, but using Trust or playing with your friends you can explore everything at wish.
i'm not so much for randomization or for paths that are still linear but which change, cause linear is linear.

I'd also CC back, but this suggestion seems to have been even more unpopular than the other one.

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Originally Posted by Connor

So from my understanding of this thread:

We don’t want dungeons to have decision making, or difficult enemies, or enemies that require specific strategies to defeat, or enemy abilities that have an effect beyond ‘deals direct damage’, and we don’t want access to any sort of skill that might impede the enemy in some way?

I mean, I’m not claiming these are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ wants; if that’s what people want then it’s not my place to try and suggest otherwise. Personally I would like to see generic dungeons be more engaging in general though. That doesn’t mean they have to have super difficult enemies or tons of branching paths, but I’d like to see them be a bit less simplistic in terms of going through them. I feel like dungeons currently are tuned to the absolute bottom limit of effort, which is fine, but I’d like to at least have to put in a modicum of effort when playing a video game (otherwise it’s like, ‘this game may as well be playing itself automatically’

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Basically yes. Daily dungeons and content run ad nauseam isn't a great place for complex trash mechanics, exploration or decision making (unless we're talking boss mechanics, but even those can push their welcomeness). The first few times might be interesting. Then it becomes boring and a pain in the butt. Meta forms, optimal paths get discovered, choices become meaningless. We might as well lean into it instead of trying to avoid it.

We still have (and will have) content that has these aspects. But these are not places on the daily checklist, biut in randomly generated and / or more open and non scripted places.

EDIT: and just for reference, we've had CC in the past. Nobody used it. Developers chose to remove them instead of forcing the issue. I think they've made their choice on that matter.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Then it becomes boring and a pain in the butt. Meta forms, optimal paths get discovered, choices become meaningless. We might as well lean into it instead of trying to avoid it.
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the biggest issue in every post I see is this sentence here. Everyone assumes the choices and decision making has to be as simple as "party picks this boss for easier time". You can do things that alter decision making such as having dungeons play mini games like the gold saucer event mini game swapping cups all around and have people guess which one's correct in a similar fashion to the choice making made in the treasure hunts. You can have dps determine how fast a certain thing dies determine what boss comes up next. You can even simply have RNG traps that require the player to view a map posted on a wall ahead of time. No one's asking for choices like you'd find in a regular single player game where "you pick these, you'll get the good ending every time" type deals. They're wanting choices more akin to RNG factor that can make things interesting, easier or harder doesn't even have to matter. Just different experiences is the main gripe istead of the same linear path with 3 bosses in it.

I would love to have dungeons with branching paths and different ways to complete, but as has been stated in here, the paths would have to either all take roughly the same amount of time to complete or the would have to offer better rewards for taking longer paths. And it would have to be enough of an incentive to warrant spending the extra time. The latter is pretty well impossible because it appears that most of the population only runs the roulettes out of a necessity and they despise every minute they ever spend in a dungeon. So we are left with the former which is to make all paths the same length of time. Maybe one could be more of a series of boss type enemies and another could be more of a horde or swarm of enemies. I would say there could be more puzzles involved but that kind of content is generally disliked by FFXIV players.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Except that we're talking about "less reward" faster. Going through Sastasha by ignoring all optionnal rooms is faster, but it would give you less reward. Of course, once you decide to do the full run, killing mobs faster...will be faster.

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The optimal path is the one that has the most reward per time spent, including time spent in queue. If a lesser reward nonetheless ends up more efficient due to the more greatly reduced time spent, you at best create a divide between premades quickly spamming the dungeon and DF DPS who'd rather earn back their time spent in queue with a full clear.

Ramping up rewards merely moves the balancing point for rewards; it does not suddenly fix all balancing issues.

The point is, why the obsession with the two-in-one deal? Why not just have the option of a harder/longer and easier/shorter dungeons runs altogether, ideally in different roulettes, saving us the conflicts of interest? Those who wanted A are presented with something in which to best do A; those who wanted B are presented with something in which to best do B.

Tl;dr: I want harder, longer dungeons. But I want a party who does, too. Let me choose what I want rather than leaving that for in-instance arguments from which the tank or healer will almost certainly leave in a puff of pettiness and lose more efficiency than any other factor could have been responsible for until we inevitably all just go the shortest route as to avoid dealing with drama.

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Originally Posted by Connor

So from my understanding of this thread:

We don’t want dungeons to have decision making, or difficult enemies, or enemies that require specific strategies to defeat, or enemy abilities that have an effect beyond ‘deals direct damage’, and we don’t want access to any sort of skill that might impede the enemy in some way?

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/facepalm

i know i know you think you are being clever with the "lulz gamerz r lazy and don't want to think" post. but the reality is that after the optimal way is found (and yes there will always be an optimal way found) toxicity will run rampant if anyone deviates from the optimal path.

as i said it makes me wonder if you all just play in static groups only or if you are newer to the genre. because if you ever tried to deviate from the expected route in a game like WoW that did have big dungeons with many different paths, hell it had dungeons that you could exploit the terrain in order to bypass encounters.

and guess what if you didn't know (especially as the tank) the fastest way to go or how to exploit the terrain you were yelled at and usually kicked from the group. how do i know? well a couple times i decided to actually tank for a LFG group in WoW i went into a dungeon that i didn't know the fastest path. i didn't know there was a place you could jump over some terrain and i generally got a little lost(it was early in my wow "career")

i was called just about every name in the book and then booted "becuz noob"

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

What players want are the rewards. Give more rewards for fully clearing the dungeons. Problem solved.

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No.
What players want is fun. Most people do not find wiping fun and frankly put: 85% of this games community does not have, nor cares to acquire, the necessary skills to beat such content. These aren't nerd players of eld that rise to the challenge. The masses of players today have no interest in challenge. They want a quick and easy dopamine fix and then move on.

I am very much against "reward-forcing" gameplay. WoW does that far too much, to the point that the DEVs seemingly no longer care if the game is fun. If participation is too low, they just throw more rewards at the problem.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

No.
What players want is fun. Most people do not find wiping fun and frankly put: 85% of this games community does not have, nor cares to acquire, the necessary skills to beat such content. These aren't nerd players of eld that rise to the challenge. The masses of players today have no interest in challenge. They want a quick and easy dopamine fix and then move on.

I am very much against "reward-forcing" gameplay. WoW does that far too much, to the point that the DEVs seemingly no longer care if the game is fun. If participation is too low, they just throw more rewards at the problem.

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I find the kind of fights in which wiping is likely to occur at least once before completing the fight to be fun, but I'm also aware that I'm at least the 40% of a 60/40 split, if not as small as the 10 against 90. I'd love to get content modifications that allow for the experience I enjoy, but I think it'd probably best be done as a broad system addition (e.g. seemingly automatic content modifications for true hard modes through scaling and a slew of additional mechanics) that can then be applied universally to those who want it, giving the greatest efficiency in content put out per development time spent. I feel that a few prototypes and then entrance into that broad system alongside some daily bonus dungeons (both modes, but, yes, with the hard mode rewarded at least proportionately to its time spent) would also draw the most players who previously did not enjoy challenge into at least considering whether they want to get better at the game.

And, honestly, I do find such options vital to the game's longevity. "Quick and easy dopamine fixes," as you put it, gradually build a tolerance. There has to be some way to still get that enjoyment even after becoming capable with and invested in the mechanics of combat, and ideally beyond just Savage 8-mans.