How are you liking Pilgrims Traverse?

Once you get into the 60s, it's a total fucking joke. Every enemy has one or more skills that one-shots you and they're very fast. One time I was killed literally 10 yalms OUTSIDE the AOE. I'm going to lose any motivation really fast to continue to try if this is the kind of "content" they come up with.

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Originally Posted by Heavenchild

I tried going solo and got killed by the stage 10 boss. Kinda lost my motivation after that. :')

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Lost motivation as well. Solo instance - wasted 30 minutes on first 10 floors cleaning every room and opening every silver chest, and then boss wiped floor with me despite using pomanders because I stood in one aoe attack (skill issue).

the first 10 levels feel sluggish because you can't do big pulls, even one by one it wont die fast fast but also wont hurt you. just bullet sponges and sometimes bad RNG on aetherpool.

most likely I won't bother again at all because these 30 minutes were for nothing and on my second attempt I might wipe again as well. that's 60 minutes for nothing.

I think the hoards feel worse than ever. While yes, in previous DD they could also give junk, I feel like 99% of the time I'm just getting potions and the new sacramental junk I don't want or need. There's a little too much RNG for my liking considering it takes 15-20 minutes to do early floors and up to 40 minutes for higher floors, the rewards should feel more.. well, rewarding for the time you spent in it. But then checking 8 hoards getting 5 potions, 3 lilies and one music roll is not my idea of rewarding, sorry to say.

I did stages 1–30, but I’ve heard more things about that one-shot disaster. I’m definitely not going any further alone.
Apparently that lazy one-shot design wipes entire groups, too. :’)

I really wonder why they brought that back again. I thought I wasn’t the only one who quit Eureka Orthos because of that
whole “Tetris fight” design. It feels more like you're a Tetris trying to find the right spot just to stay alive. Nothing about fighting at all.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

Once you get into the 60s, it's a total fucking joke. Every enemy has one or more skills that one-shots you and they're very fast.

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Just gotta learn them all. Every single enemy ohko is very simple and comes with a lengthy telegraph in the form of an aura, a cast bar, and/or a floor indicator. Once you know how to dodge them they'll stop being an issue until 81+ when patrols start becoming a significant risk.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

One time I was killed literally 10 yalms OUTSIDE the AOE.

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The only way this is possible is if you were snapshotted as being inside the aoe due to lag or just moving a moment too late, or if you got hit by a separate aoe that you didn't notice.

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Originally Posted by Ankhira

While yes, in previous DD they could also give junk, I feel like 99% of the time I'm just getting potions and the new sacramental junk I don't want or need.

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I'm fine with the potions because they're at least useful for everyone; the sacramental items are completely useless to anyone that isn't doing Quantum and they don't seem to sell well on the MB.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

Once you get into the 60s, it's a total fucking joke. Every enemy has one or more skills that one-shots you and they're very fast. One time I was killed literally 10 yalms OUTSIDE the AOE. I'm going to lose any motivation really fast to continue to try if this is the kind of "content" they come up with.

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It was the case with EO too. For the new dungeon, soloing requires knowing what mobs do. Going in with a team requires that as well as knowing where your team is. Having someone running like a headless chicken ahead of the entire group and trapping other teammates in a giant aoe from an mob they can't even see = fail (I've been blacklisting people for that). Being able to queue directly for 70+ has advantages but also disadvantages where you can end up with ppl who don't care.

At 4 disconnects on 90+, so fantastic.

I'd say its overall the current best deep dungeon in the game for the average player. Full kits, beautiful aesthetics, good music selection and nice bosses combined with proper HP scaling make this DD way smoother to get through while not being too boring (yet).

Way more checkpoints, one-shots starting from later floors (~51+ instead of 31+) that can still be survivable for tanks under certain circumstances, and overall less mob mechanics that easily wipe your entire party in the blink of an eye make for an overall better experience. Potsherds (and by extension, sustaining potions) being far more common and AP going up faster (feels like its +2/3/4 for silvers now instead of +1/2/3) also help with this.

My only real criticism (especially compared to previous DDs) is that there is perhaps too little friction now. Soloing PT is the easiest any solo DD has ever been, and that is impressive after EO. I would like for a future DD to at least be more difficult solo, while not particularly affecting the current group experience.

Already solo'd it within its first week, cleared it solo starting at 71+ (to buy earrings), and already at 61+ on another job.

As far as deep dungeons go this one is very easy. Bosses can be hectic but that is only until you learn how they work.

I will very boldly say having back to back wipes just below the final floors due to RNG (several patrols with giant AoEs coming at the same time in a room, moving into traps because you try to dodge the giant aoe, the list goes on) and you're doing this with randoms in a matched party where there isn't always a good comp or people that won't know what theyre doing (Running into things they shouldnt, pulling everything for funsies, etc), then it becomes a point where it really isn't a skill issue on the player at all, your clear is reliant on RNG, getting lucky, and there is a certain threshold where it just is not good game design IMO.

If they were planning to open it up to matched parties for accessibility or some other reason, I don't think it's doing its job very well. You're guaranteed a far better experience going in with a fixed party that has some group coordination in their party comp if not knowing what to do/expect. This is all provided you can actually find a fixed party who are all aligned on the same floors and have a spare save file or two if they're not already running a save.

You can't really have that with random people in a matched party, so the outcome really is all based on just luck. While it's nice we can start at later floors, it doesn't feel like anything is really tweaked or balanced to work around these random party comps and randomly grouped players that are going in with zero coordination and this ends up wasting A LOT of someones time if the wipes that happen may not even be their fault.

Bosses are at least something you will eventually learn how to fight since you're just learning choreography so they're a lot less of an issue if not really an issue at all.

TLDR I give this a 6/10 at best. Deep Dungeons even in the past had their quirky BS that could end runs but you're at least with coordinated groups and can plan for these things a lot better. You could plan the same for PT if you're in a fixed party and have a smoother run but that just isn't gonna work out well in 90% of matched parties. If you'd like a good time, go with a fixed party or try solo on particular classes.
Speaking of rewards, when you're fighting the additional RNG battle for loot, it's really not a great feeling when you're walking out of all those hours spent and your rewards are... materia, lillies/spirits/loot for quantum (when you havent reached it yet and some may not even go for it when they do), and more potions! For all the other rewards that exist, it feels pretty bad when these are the ones you're getting 90% of the time.

All of these traits are what makes up the identity of a Deep Dungeon, but that doesn't make the negatives to this extent any less of a problem.
For the sake of identity I don't think the random RNG BS needs to be 100% taken out of deep dungeons, but I feel there should be some balancing and tweaking of the parameters SOMEWHAT. It's not all bad but when it's bad it's bad.
Good game design finds a way to reward players for the time invested. Losing all that time to RNG and things that aren't a skill issue, just isn't it.

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Originally Posted by MAJRIS

Lost motivation as well. Solo instance - wasted 30 minutes on first 10 floors cleaning every room and opening every silver chest, and then boss wiped floor with me despite using pomanders because I stood in one aoe attack (skill issue).

the first 10 levels feel sluggish because you can't do big pulls, even one by one it wont die fast fast but also wont hurt you. just bullet sponges and sometimes bad RNG on aetherpool.

most likely I won't bother again at all because these 30 minutes were for nothing and on my second attempt I might wipe again as well. that's 60 minutes for nothing.

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Why not do a few runs in Duty Finder with a group to build some Aetherpool. Queues are fast and it doesnt take long to do 1-30 in a group, Plus you ll be at 30-40+ Aetherpool in no time and some regen/HP potions too. After that go solo if you would like to experience it solo. The floor 10 boss is probably the hardest boss in the early floors bc of the adds, but with some Aetherpool they die quick enough solo.

The mobs really arent sponges like in Orthos and i can easily pull a lot on WAR and kill them within seconds. I managed to get to 80 solo so far and i would say its comparable to HoH, maybe even easier if you get lucky with the candelabra buffs bc they can speed up a floor a lot.

Ive gotten up to stone 91 since my comment + replayed high floors a few times to learn the bosses. Honestly I'm disappointed with how the floors are balanced (is literally one shots everywhere, I tried healer but ended up doing future runs on redmage since the only support you actually need in there is rez). Its enough so that I don't think I want to go further / try quantum. I may have I misunderstood something because I thought the quantum fight could be made easier than it is with offerings. But it looks like it starts at savage and offerings only make it harder. (I could be wrong, I'm going off of what I heard).

I don't wanna do a savage and I'm frankly pretty sick of every other content I get into ending in a fight that difficult. The rewards don't even look worth the effort.

I have been enjoying it, especially the aspect where we are outdoors rather than underground. Though, the rising difficulty at 61 may be the end of my journey in matched parties. I’ll push for a bit longer but if that’s the end, I’m still ok with using it to level some jobs.

Feeback:

positive

+ overall Design is nice
+ Aetherpool is quickly gathered (if you get lucky)
+ Matchmaking
+ Checkpoints
+ Reward Structure e.g. Agenda, Pity Tokens etc.

negative

- still only 2 Saveslots? there should be at least a minimum of 4 slots (fixed group, solo, duo, matchmaking)
- PotD requirement shortens the player pool in every circumstances
both are just "lets just dont even think about more than 1 minute what we could possibly change or improve" after nearly 10 years of DD its just lazy and outdated game design

- lazy ass 1 KO Mechanics
- invisible enemies
(just the usual bankrupt combat designs, Final Fantasy has so many iconic debuffs in the whole series, why not use them?)

- spongy enemies if not outgeared via Aetherpool, especially Solo & Bosses
- no further replay value for Quantum
- repetitive enemy designs (Sineater and even more Sineaters, yawn) especially in the earlier floors
- Reward Structure, seriously who is going to buy materia with shards? how about some teleport tickets, 2h Solo FC Buffs allowances etc.
- floor debuffs are feeling a lil unbalanced right now especially "cant use item" ones (in my runs), feels def. more then in any other DD

Quantum itself:
The usual Ozma BS. For real get him in check.
Fight should have been way more gradually designed

0-9 offerings Normal Mode
10-24 offerings Extreme
25-39 offerings Savage
40 offerings Ultimate

I can appreciate the try to alter content for more then one audience.
But as usual with Ozma in recent time the execution is another let down.

I really enjoy it. It makes me feel a bit like I'm back in original Palace of the Dead when we all ran screaming away when we saw a slime. I've always loved matching in Deep Dungeon the best to see how far a ragtag bunch of randoms can go.

Design and music are very good, and the first floors don't take forever, so it's better than EO already. Less grind on the useless stuff.

Going through the levels feels better IMO. Musics great, Level designs great and some of the unique mechs are fun. (BALL!)
But the bosses every 10 levels tells me SE has not listened at all nor learnt from their mistakes.
Everything's a 1 hit kill and next to nothing is telegraphed.

Why is it that DD's, A/S ranks and world bosses are so different from Normal, Extreme and Savage content? (Cant comment if Ultimate is like the rest or not, never bothered to try Ultimate and getting a team for them on OCE to try is impossible) Did they give the non raid/trial/dungeon content to the team idiot sitting in the corner huffing glue?
1 hit kills and mechs that go off 0.1 of second after the orange appears and killer mechs with no tells or warning is terrible design and needs to be stopped!

Rewards feel a bit mech. Same old same old unrewarding stuff and who the hell do they think is going to spend the hard to get shards for common bloody Materia????

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Everything's a 1 hit kill and next to nothing is telegraphed.

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Welcome to deep dungeon upper floors. This is not new. Why are people still surprised?

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

Welcome to deep dungeon upper floors. This is not new. Why are people still surprised?

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Nobody's surprised.
More annoyed at it being the same old poorly designed crap that shows a lack of creativity or understanding of what players want/enjoy.

So what, you want everything telegraphed with big obvious orange aoes and dumbed down even more? This is already the easiest deep dungeon in the game by far because I'm almost done with my second solo from 1 to 100.

Unless you have a better idea? Yes the dev team has not been on a roll in some departments but you haven't really suggested what they should be doing in deep dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

So what, you want everything telegraphed with big obvious orange aoes and dumbed down even more? This is already the easiest deep dungeon in the game by far because I'm almost done with my second solo from 1 to 100.

Unless you have a better idea? Yes the dev team has not been on a roll in some departments but you haven't really suggested what they should be doing in deep dungeons.

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Except i did, in my original comment i mentioned Dungeons/Trials/Raids/MSQ where the fight design, while not perfect, is fair and has some creativity instead of "Move out of this telegraphed 1 hit KO attack or die." Even the games with reputations for being unfair and difficult put tells on their fights and give you enough time within their systems to react.

The non Dungeon/trial/raid/MSQ 'hard' content tosses the rest of the games formula out the window and relies on "Hur hur hur you didnt move out of this mech we gave you no warning for, time to react nor clue it was coming Hur hur hur!" Nor does content outside of the mentioned take into account that people dont live ontop of the servers unlike the JP players, they HAVE to give players time to react and take latency into account, which world content/DD's do not.

So as my origional post sugested, bring all this other content into line with the traditional instanced fights (Dungeon, Trial, Savage) where they can be difficult but are always fair.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

So what, you want everything telegraphed with big obvious orange aoes and dumbed down even more? This is already the easiest deep dungeon in the game by far because I'm almost done with my second solo from 1 to 100.

Unless you have a better idea? Yes the dev team has not been on a roll in some departments but you haven't really suggested what they should be doing in deep dungeons.

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I don't think it should be made super easy to always have everything be a big telegraphed AOE and no one shots at all. I think in doses letting some enemies have that it's fine, but its nearly every single enemy in those upper floors capable of it and when your health bar becomes a binary status of only alive or dead and no in between, sometimes it can feel really cheesy TBH and not only because "oh no I'm killed by a silly OHKO", what becomes a point for elements of gameplay like mitigation/healing? You can take a healer for sleep and a tank to stun things but if the goal is just to kill things as fast as possible with binary health bars, it almost feels encouraged to bring only DPS and you're likely to pick off enemy by enemy melting things down before their big casts even go off. All that is provided IF someone doesn't do something silly like stepping into a trap or pulling an enemy that's gonna have poor positioning so someone off guard gets cleaved.

The individual AOE elements might not be as bad of an issue on their own, but taking into account the randomness of deep dungeon and how a lot of overlap of these varying things can suddenly happen and make things go south fast, it can be VERY frustrating. "Oh no, the succubus was pulled and someone has pyretic, but oh no another enemy patrol came and an aoe is gonna go off but Im not suppose to move/stuns on CD/not gonna LoS it in time" etc etc the list of overlapping dangerous moments can go on.

On the flipside, I feel some approaches to game design like those invisible lizards that only appear when you get close was one of the more unique things I've seen and I wish we'd see more of this kind of approach to enemy design. Seeing some mechanics and telegraphs that you can remember from previous boss battles in other content can feel good when you know how to react in DD. A pomander exists for status effect cleansing but it feels like thats hardly used in those later floors when you're on a binary health bar. These are just some examples of positives that if the devs followed these routes and expanded on these considerations, we might see more unique mechanics instead of so many OHKO's

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Nobody's surprised.
More annoyed at it being the same old poorly designed crap that shows a lack of creativity or understanding of what players want/enjoy.

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My simple solution to encourage more dev creativity: Ban body checks and one hit mechanics in most content with the exception of tank busters.

Overall I'm just happy I get to utilize stun \ sleep \ interupts a lot in PT without it being yet another place everything is immune to everything by floor 29.

I finally beat level 100 from dungeon matching only. Had to run 70+ probably 10 times to get there.

I enjoy it and will definitely keep trying until I get my 8 clears.

The issue I think is that it STILL requires PoTD floor 50, so people who haven't bothered with deep dungeons will not bother with it.

I love being able to use DF and not have to go back 50 levels back. I'm just not sure how long before it just stops popping again, because, once again... there's only so much replayability. The only thing you get for clearing 100 is a book you can exchange for very limited items (and what you can get with the oil is limited too). I'll get my 8 runs for the mount, get the emotes etc, then probably be done.

The challenge log is nice, but I can tell, as a casual player, that I will probably stop bothering before I get the mount (one week in and I have... 7 first light relics).

Absolutely 0 interest in Quantum.

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Originally Posted by Doki

Overall I'm just happy I get to utilize stun \ sleep \ interupts a lot in PT without it being yet another place everything is immune to everything by floor 29.

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Playing it as a DNC I did notice this! Makes the aiming a bit more desirable, as people sometimes forget the other Grazes do exist.

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Originally Posted by Pricia

The issue I think is that it STILL requires PoTD floor 50, so people who haven't bothered with deep dungeons will not bother with it.

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I've never cared about this but I also do deep dungeons regularly. This is a nonissue as much as people like to make it one. It's easier than it ever has been. People really can't be bothered to spend up to a couple of hours in potd (and then never have to do it again) in the YEARS between deep dungeon releases? They were never interested in the new one then.

Seeing the extended back and forth between "I hate the one hits!!" vs "lol it's regular experience y u surprise bruh?" makes me want to write my PoV on the matter a bit sooner despite initially only wanting to chime after I have my first group clear of a full run. Admittedly I've only gone up as high as F70 as of today so I can't say much beyond that. But I do realize that 'mechanics' one shots you beyond F51+ and it also annoys me to no end as somebody who defaults to healer queues. However that's not all - this is compounded by other issues i.e. the fact that they neutered AA damage so hard I'm no longer relevant in the run beside being raisebot, reposebot, and maybe esunabot, which first two can be done by SMN/RDM just fine. Esuna is a bit hit or miss, but then again any okay group would minimize the risk of getting impeding trap by sticking to walls.

As a point of comparison, remember PotD F180 Behemoth? If you get hit by most of their mechanics you're not outright dead even as a non-tank. Sure it might spell an end to solo run because you're just 1 AA away from dying but that's not what I'm talking about. The fact is, you didn't straight up die and can be bailed if your healer is awake, giving them an actual value to the party. Meanwhile over here at PT F51 and onward, everything already starts killing you on top of having neutered AAs? Like EO, honestly this shift of incoming damage entirely to failure of mechanic handling makes me feel like a change tailored for DPS DD solo runs more than anything. Tanks? While anecdotal, my group's tank was also complaining that barely needs his cooldown because how binary the types of incoming damages are. He either gets hit by something that barely tickles, or it hurts so much he wouldn't live beyond two(?) hits. "What the f*ck am I even tanking?" he said. Hey, at the very least tanks can still interject, stun, and generally have more control to the flow of non-boss floors, I guess? lol.

EDIT: the “having to learn mechanic” excuse also doesn’t fly to me because (1)there is no job/role that’s excused from learning mechanics, and; (2)what do you supposed to do after you conquered the mechanic? We all know where this leads to. It’s just downright unfun. I thought this is a DD, not EW+ DDR simulator that the rest of the games runs by. If I want to do contents where not knowing mechanics would kill me & not having threatening AA I would do other normal/EX/some savage lol, not DD. But here we are, since EO’s introduction.

So far I have been having good amount of fun, but I can definitely see a future without anymore PT runs from my end despite that. The degree of unfun is big enough I don't think I can just let them slide. Maybe F71+ will change my mind (It won't).

Pilgrim's Traverse is probably my favorite deep dungeon in the game at the moment as well as the very first one I've successfully soloed.

It really combines everything I like about the previous 3 deep dungeons. It has the lower hp and easier early floors of PotD and HoH combined with the mechanical difficulty of EO for later floors.

The new systems introduced are also a ton of fun. The incense being a combination of magicite and demiclones with each one having a niche is extremely cool. Then there is the candelabra system which I absolutely adore. The positive effects add so much to doing floors and the negative effects don't really feel that horrible. It's always a good time seeing what you will get from one.

To add to this, the checkpoints make practicing for solo runs easier than ever and being able to start at 71 is wonderful for group runs.

I personally think auto-attack damage is a horrible way to scale enemies. I primarily play melee but melee jobs seriously struggle in PotD and HoH. Being stuck on jobs like WAR, SMN, and MCH is just downright not fun for me and lead me to just not really even bother trying to solo older deep dungeons. Meanwhile EO is just a nightmare of enemies with massive HP pools and an extremely slow and downright boring first 30 floors.

Learning the mechanics of each enemy is actually a ton of fun for me. I love having to learn what's easy to pull and what everything does. I've never had so much fun just progging a solo clear.

I know not everyone is happy about this new content and dare I say that it's kinda ok for that to be the case. The people who like auto attack based deep dungeons have PotD and HoH. The people who like EO (are there people who like EO?) have EO. There is now a good variety of choices when it comes to deep dungeon so people can just play what they want!

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Nobody's surprised.
More annoyed at it being the same old poorly designed crap that shows a lack of creativity or understanding of what players want/enjoy.

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See, what gets me with this... is that in PT this isn't something most would consider poorly designed.

Unlike Orthos, where Floor 1 begins with 'any AOE/telegraph/late telegraph is a OHKO' and has HP sponge enemies out the gate, PT has the same natural build into it that you get with PotD 101+ or HoH 60+ regarding the main mobs. You should, by default, always assume boss AOEs will be minimal recovery chance-to-zero recovery chance because their autos are usually nothing to fear in Deep Dungeon from floor 10 anyway; at least that's been my mentality as a Deep Dungeon enjoyer.

By the time you get to PotD 160? You should be expecting that everything can and will destroy you outside of autos in some way. You learn what needs stuns, grazes, silences, sleeps. You learn the sizes of PBAOEs, and laugh as another conal becomes a cruisy Fachan sidestep with experience, even if you're in the face of a luring trap with two enemies who can absolutely nuke your run that may be unsyncronised in their OHKO, but dodgeable, mechanic. HoH began the OHKOs around 45+ on some enemies as a way of pushing you into 'hey, this is getting harder, assume death from all telegraphs soon' which has you ready for 70+.

PT has the same. You can survive certain AOEs in 40+ as a non-tank but 50+ you expect death and 71+ you are guaranteed death if you aren't paying attention. The nice thing is they are all telegraphed in some way. Yes, a late PBAOE or PB Cone is a telegraph. You die. You learn. The new checkpoints make that very comfortable to do which is a huge QoL change for getting skills up to scratch on higher floorsets before you decide to do a major solo climb entirely from stone 1.



In reponse generally to this thread as a whole:
My Deep Dungeon co-player (we love doing duo runs) and I have so far done up to Floor 90 totally blind and we hit true jackassery points of FAFO with mobs for science in 81+ re: discovering if stuff can be avoided, stunned, danced with, or negated with line of sight the other night, always ready to die if we get clipped by something but taking note of the size/scope of it if we did. Hella fun. Easily the most fun Deep Dungeon since HoH. The visual designs for floor 81+ are gorgeous!

I also really love that the weekly challenge log incentivises you for the item grind for the minions/mounts to run the whole thing.

Hey folks. I am a DD head who has multiple solo and party clears across all the DDs. It's my favourite form of PvE content, and more eager than I was to solo clear PT, it was to learn about it. I did my solo clear blind, running a PLD file where I was able to die as I pleased to see what the enemies did and what would be fatal, and a MCH file for just clearing it. This is an assessment I typed out for my community.

You know, if you can believe it, I think HOH is still the best solo DD. It has the best rooms, an aesthetic I like, and while the bosses are inferior, the dungeon itself feels like a challenge. PT has better reward structures, is prettier, a better story, more interesting pomanders, and is without a doubt the best DD for parties, but I would have liked it if regular enemies did a little more damage. I think we're grownups and if you are solo, you should have to kite. It's actually a big deal, because it puts mechanical tension on every interaction. Encounters where it's just about know what to do IMO are boring. It should require execution, and while HOH is easy to understand, you feel in mortal peril all the time. I don't like the double autos potentially oneshotting DPS, but maybe if they could up the enemy AA damage by 30% or so across all non-bosses (for EO as well), I'd like that.

I always say POTD is a lottery, HOH is an arcade, and EO is an exam, due to their different emphases. I don't know what I'd call PT, but so far, I lean towards saying it's just a good fucking game.

Solo Challenge
HOH > PT > EO > POTD

Party Challenge
EO > HOH >= PT > POTD

Approachability
PT >>>> HOH > POTD > EO

Aesthetic
PT > HOH > POTD > A bag of dog shite > EO

Story
POTD >= PT >> HOH > EO

Rewards
PT >>>>>>> HOH > POTD >= EO

Grading of the Deep Dungeons overall:
POTD: B-
HOH: B+
EO: D-
PT: A+

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Originally Posted by Valence

I think blaming it on the server tick is a skill issue and a mechanical failure of understanding how snapshots work in this game

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I thought that, too, but then it was multiple people at the exact same time, so there's evidence lmao. I have actually inted pretty hard because I tried moving early before, though, and that was my bad.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

So what, you want everything telegraphed with big obvious orange aoes and dumbed down even more? This is already the easiest deep dungeon in the game by far because I'm almost done with my second solo from 1 to 100.

Unless you have a better idea? Yes the dev team has not been on a roll in some departments but you haven't really suggested what they should be doing in deep dungeons.

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Plenty of people have suggested other approaches. Let's not pretend for a single moment that it's a binary choice between big obvious telegraphs or untelegraphed visual cues. There is even some mobs in PT, albeit an amount you can count on two fingers, that do actually do other things than DDR (poison dot, slow or heavy debuff). And that's not even touching on the matter of simple damage management that is literally void, as a lot of other people already pointed at rightfully so.

Make the combat system matter again. They do have a crazy amount of classic FF debuffs (slow, heavy, mini, etc), yet they do not use them, and do not give us opportunities nor agency to use our own in role actions (leg graze anyone?). DDs are the perfect place for this.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

I've never cared about this but I also do deep dungeons regularly. This is a nonissue as much as people like to make it one. It's easier than it ever has been. People really can't be bothered to spend up to a couple of hours in potd (and then never have to do it again) in the YEARS between deep dungeon releases? They were never interested in the new one then.

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Sure, but I'm frankly annoyed at people constantly deflecting the problem and dismissing it because "it's easy". It may very well be, but that's beyond the point. That requirement makes zero sense and is dumb.

Another thing to consider; healers (though these days when was the last time square even considered healers)

In PT and EO healers are COMPLETELY useless because everything is either “I can pull 7 mobs with no mitigation and take 1/5 of my health as damage” or “AOE does 8* your hp bar”

SMN and RDM both have on demand rezzes and do a lot more damage (useful in the Troian floors which are chock full of gloom) and sleep as the same crowd control as healers with repose.

Like there is not a single unique use for a healer in the modern deep dungeon design other than “solo challenge challenge run” which is a damper on PT which in most other ways I do think is a legit improvement on the (very stale) formula

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Another thing to consider; healers (though these days when was the last time square even considered healers)

In PT and EO healers are COMPLETELY useless because everything is either “I can pull 7 mobs with no mitigation and take 1/5 of my health as damage” or “AOE does 8* your hp bar”

SMN and RDM both have on demand rezzes and do a lot more damage (useful in the Troian floors which are chock full of gloom) and sleep as the same crowd control as healers with repose.

Like there is not a single unique use for a healer in the modern deep dungeon design other than “solo challenge challenge run” which is a damper on PT which in most other ways I do think is a legit improvement on the (very stale) formula

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Aside from the absence of the need for a healer, in EO's case it really sabotages the resource management and planning that makes DD fun and unique. At least with PT, you can get opportunity cost off of steel. There's stuff from start to finish you can only live with steel, balm, or both. If you get HP bonus, or the enemy has gloom, you can play around that, too. EO, like you said, things kill you multiple times over, so steel, HP up, HP down, gloom, Unei's stoneskin, etc, is irrelevant. The only time steel really matters is bosses, and you'll have more than enough. You're in POTD or HOH, you get gloom in the upper floor, it's like shit, we need to play carefully. EO? I am just thinking about how much longer it's going to take. It should never be that your biggest challenge soloing a DD is your ability to stay awake.

Would absolutely take some of the HP out of enemies in EO, change most of the instant kills to either be barely survivable with AP or the right buffs, but then just ramp up the auto attack damage for everything except bosses. Let me feel the struggle for my life. Also it would make Unei and steels way more exciting to get.

PT has nicer resource management and kill times, but yeah, I'd like more auto attack damage here, too. 30%? 40%? I don't know, but I shouldn't be able to pull whole floors early on as a MCH with no AP or potions, and I also shouldn't still be able to take on multiple enemies at the later floors without at least good kiting or resource usage.

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Originally Posted by Esmoire

more interesting pomanders

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Even in the current system paradigm this was a bit of a let-down for me. There's just 3-4 unique Pomanders, I wish they changed more of them. Maybe leaving just Safety, Sight, Strength, Steel, Purity, Serenity, Raising, Fortune and Intuition*. I feel all the others could be brand new effects.

* Although I'd also appreciate if they could get rid of Intuition and made a brand new way of obtaining random treasure sacks.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Even in the current system paradigm this was a bit of a let-down for me. There's just 3-4 unique Pomanders, I wish they changed more of them. Maybe leaving just Safety, Sight, Strength, Steel, Purity, Serenity, Raising, Fortune and Intuition*. I feel all the others could be brand new effects.

* Although I'd also appreciate if they could get rid of Intuition and made a brand new way of obtaining random treasure sacks.

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The big thing I meant when I said that is HOH IMO has too many floor clears, and it can be unhealthy. I like the idea of magicite existing as catch against bad rolls on no item floors. That said, I don't think it needed petrification on-top of it. I think something like Frailty where you still have to fight the enemies is more interesting.

PT, in comparison, has one true floor clear and two soft floor clears competing with the same resource pool, with Feo Ul's transformation spell and damage all but ensuring victory even if it doesn't kill outright. Granted, I have steamrolled the last set with good rolls on candelabras on devotion, though that's not a guarantee.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Sure, but I'm frankly annoyed at people constantly deflecting the problem and dismissing it because "it's easy". It may very well be, but that's beyond the point. That requirement makes zero sense and is dumb.

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And I can sympathize that it is indeed dumb. However if they aren't going to remove that requirement after 6+ years I don't see our stale-unable-to-innovate corporation changing this fact. The sooner people pull their head out of the sand and just bite the bullet they will NEVER have to do potd again. I'm not being mean to these people I am being realistic. Even I have my own gripes despite being a DD soloer (PT has been trivial to me once learned, 2+ solos within a week with time invested?).

Or else what? Are people going to yet again whine in 2 years that they have to do potd once another DD rolls around (likely with little innovation?). Square is nearly creatively bankrupt in this game you know.

Edit: Hell if people ask me I can bring 3 deadweights on a field trip with them doing absolutely nothing and suddenly potd ceases to be the bane of their existence.

Its fine, the 40-50 first floors is moderate as in not to difficult to survirve... then it changes to lethal mode as it should, that it is not enforced to be fixed group to go towards the top is a nice change as well.

Deep Dungeons is superior to Savage/Ultimates and Extremes, etc.

For one reason, each run is different and only the bosses remain the same.

I miss the big open floors from HoH where you could just primal nuke everything after popping a fortune and restock your pomanders.