Dungeon design is just so boring and formulaic [Spoilers]

They've tried exploratory dungeons before. The majority of the players hate them, and the ones who do engage the only successful ones... speedrun them (PotD, HoH).

I prefer WoW’s dungeons to level characters tbh - they have a nice variety and you don’t lose half your skill bar for lower level ones. Also they’re not all “pull 2 packs of mobs, boss, pull two packs, boss, pull another two packs, boss”, they could do with another formula tbh.

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Originally Posted by ddwarbird

However, the dungeons this expansion have been so boring. Its just 2 trash waves then boss, every time. Some of the bosses do have interesting mechanics and the Endwalker dungeons do feel harder but doable if you know what you are doing but...

There is no exploration in these dungeons, they don't feel epic and remind me of Final Fantasy XIII a little too much, an endless hallway with very little variation. Visually some of them are stunning and its a shame they are so formulaic.

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This has been the pattern since at least Snowcloak back in ARR. To act like it's new to Endwalker is disingenuous.

Should have a dungeon design contest.

I will say that the extreme throttling of the pulls in Endwalker doesn't feel great. Two packs then a barrier, two packs then a barrier, boss. Repeat two more times, done. I do miss having the *option* of the Mt. Gulg suicide pull to the boss. In Endwalker, I think Tower of Zot is the last time we get anything big and spicy like that (though there are a few hairy two-pulls in Babel).

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Originally Posted by ddwarbird

However, the dungeons this expansion have been so boring. Its just 2 trash waves then boss, every time. Some of the bosses do have interesting mechanics and the Endwalker dungeons do feel harder but doable if you know what you are doing but...

There is no exploration in these dungeons, they don't feel epic and remind me of Final Fantasy XIII a little too much, an endless hallway with very little variation. Visually some of them are stunning and its a shame they are so formulaic.

I think one of the ways to remedy this is to make dungeons different lengths, have 4 or 5 bosses or have them with optional bosses. This game does easily beat out WoW but the reason WoW did so well was the compelling dungeon design, with different numbers of bosses and call optional bosses. (Some of my favorite dungeons were Deadmines, Mauroden etc) because they may have been longer and sub-optimal but it didn't feel like game designers created it, it felt lived in, like REAL hideouts and caves.

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Dungeons exist primarily for tome farming and so players who just want to get their tomes and get out have been pushing us more and more towards formulaic for years.

We've got optional paths in The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, which is one of the least popular dungeons in the game. We've got optional treasure rooms in The Sunken Temple of Qarn that nobody has bothered to open in years. The Aetherochemical Research Facility kinda has four boss fights, and people grinded the heck out of it back in the day, I don't think it's very popular now though.

Before they try to add anything interesting to dungeons they need to do all the math for how many tomes per hour it'll give, if they want the majority of players to ever want to interact with it.

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Originally Posted by zcrash970

Devs are afraid to experiment so yeah

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Nah ppl here whined too much about "hard" dungeons that weren't actually hard and just had unique or uncommon area mechanics in them like Aurum Vale, Qarn, Cutters Cry, etc...

They also whined about ppl wanting to take side paths to get the additional chests...

I would love more dynamic design for dungeon content, but the most vocal part of the community has nothing but contempt for them and would throw an unbelievable tantrum should we get anything other than what we have now. There also has to be something worth getting out of these dungeons, and the reason older ones like the thousand maws and Qarn dont get any mileage out of their extra chests and areas is because the things you get from them are useless now. If extra chests dropped something useful, like Tomes, then people would want to seek them out.

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Originally Posted by kejakalope

They've tried exploratory dungeons before. The majority of the players hate them, and the ones who do engage the only successful ones... speedrun them (PotD, HoH).

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wait, where that's coming from? Quarrymill is always very busy with people, and I never saw folks hating them either ingame or around online communities... Quite the opposite, I've seen a dissatisfaction for ShB not having one.

The only reason why I tend to avoid both PotD and HoH nowaydays is that I'v ran them ad nauseum already during their respective expansions... There's only so much just 2 deep dungeons can achieve.

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Originally Posted by Lily_Skye

we need mythic plus dungeons

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