Originally Posted by
Tsumdere
I will agree, that does not sound fun, but it is entirely possible to mix it up.
A few challenges presented weren't merely just HP with standard comp but non-standard comps such as 4 BRD. Just doing 4 BRD in a normal dungeon on sync sounds like a riot and a good challenge to me. To aid with things like this, make a potion specifically used for these challenges that work like Eureka Sustain. It would be an interesting balancing act of dropping aggro to another BRD to wait out the potion CD, rotating the boss' aggro to make sure no one takes lethal damage.
Add some randomly spawning wandering mobs that are legit dangerous a la HoH and PotD to keep the group on their toes and wary of what they are pulling and where. Make some mobs in a pack tanky, but make one do massive AoE damage so it's nearly mandatory to focus that one down first. Add a Namazu Sticky Whisker that can drop down from the Heavens during a boss and if you don't kill it fast enough, it can either give the boss a random buff or start spawning an army of Namazu adds.
If you are worried people would just drop out if RNG does not smile on them, make the reward weekly and if you Vote Abandon or leave, then you are locked out of the weekly reward and/or a big hit to your leader board ranking. Timing out would only not lock you out if you say... reached second boss or something.
Clearly, these are all ideas with little refinement because I am spit balling right now, but it goes to show that there is things that work with FF14 that could be used. The game is stiff, but it does not mean they are missing out on a ton of things they could do with their own combat system.