Dawntrial Dungeons

Can we please get a shake up in how dungeons are made?

2 groups of enemies > boss > 2 groups of enemies > boss > 2 groups of enemies > boss

It's been the same since ARR. Can we get something new?

Do some big dungeons, with multiple routes and bosses. But have the 3 bosses we need to kill be random.
So every time we enter, we don't end up doing the exact same thing every time.

And yes, I know, we have the V&C dungeons but they're not for leveling. I'm talking about your basic, regular dungeons. The bread and butter for dailies and, leveling and story content.

I personally would like to see a advanced difficulty made for such dungeons but we'll never get that cause story dungeons are meant to be casual content you could fall asleep to or watch youtube on your second monitor.

There's only so much that can be done without adding puzzles or such (which I personally would not mind), but there already are places where the pulls are different but people just barrel past and assume it's 2+2 anyway.

Some that come to mind:

Aery final pack: focusing down the vouivres makes the additional wave of down wyverns spawn sooner. The whole fight goes fast regardless, but still.

Shisui first zone: the fourth pack starts with two large enemies; killing one of the two summons three more. The quickest way to deal with all the enemies is to stop AOEing and focus down one of those two (probably the sea serpent) to spawn the little fish.

Doma Castle first zone: there are two packs, a colossus, and another two packs. People keep pulling the colossus to the next pack of enemies and then doing the final pack alone, when it would be simpler to single-target the colossus and then pull the two packs together.

Vanaspati final pack: focus down one of the two birds to lure out the pack.

There was an arr dungeon that was like a maze and had a ramp that is made out of glue. It slows you down as you get to the final boss and there are annoying eggs that explode, and l will get sprouts that get lost in it. If it was healer sprout, l would need to track them down and bring them back to the right path. It sucks in case you forget. It was reworked to be like a modern dungeon. It was a huge relief. I will take "boring" dungeons anytime.

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

There was an arr dungeon that was like a maze and had a ramp that is made out of glue. It slows you down as you get to the final boss and there are annoying eggs that explode, and l will get sprouts that get lost in it. If it was healer sprout, l would need to track them down and bring them back to the right path. It sucks in case you forget. It was reworked to be like a modern dungeon. It was a huge relief. I will take "boring" dungeons anytime.

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That was the ARR launch version of Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak (the original 1.0 Toto-Rak was similar). Part of the reason it was redesigned was to make it useable with the Trust System/Duty Support, as many of those dungeon mechanics/features would have just been too problematic for the NPCs. But the greater issue of dungeon design being streamlined into basically just a single glorified path from start to end boss was because.. of player behaviour.

ARR dungeons that had branching paths were always just cheesed by players anyway who never went through the alternative paths determined to speed-run them and always just made a beeline down the quickest path, or abused areas where they could mass pull enemies for huge amounts of EXP, leave without completing even the first boss, and then enter again, repeating as many times as they wanted (this is also why EXP in dungeons now is given as a lump sum at the end of the dungeon after completing it, not on individual enemies) - Aurum Vale's first section was especially notorious for that.

All SE has done is aknowledge that and altered the design accordingly.

a lot of people don't realize is things are the way they are because this is what the playerbase asked for. streamlined dungeons being on of them.

branching paths and stuff are a novelty that is good once, but does not lend well to repetition.

I'd like if they focused on making mob packs themselves more... well, anything. Every now and then you'll find a mob or two in a dungeon that actually has some sort of mechanic to deal with, but most don't tend to do very much outside of vomiting AoE at a random player's feet every few seconds. It's not very interesting the first time, much less the fiftieth. I'd like more mobs that do things you have to work around more often. Perhaps they could even try experimenting with packs consisting of semi-random selections of mobs each instance, though I'm unsure if that's even possible for them to do.

as long as i don't have to pick up keys and open doors all the time.

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Originally Posted by dtv20

2 groups of enemies > boss > 2 groups of enemies > boss > 2 groups of enemies > boss

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I feel like this became a genuine issue in EW, there are very few dungeons I can think of that aren't literally just 2 groups > boss x 3. The only ones that have slight deviation from that are Vanaspati, Alzadaal's Legacy and The Lunar Subteranne.
It might sound kind of silly, but it really makes the dungeons feel "videogamey" instead of something that is actually happening in a story.

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Originally Posted by Mayhemmer

I'd like if they focused on making mob packs themselves more... well, anything. Every now and then you'll find a mob or two in a dungeon that actually has some sort of mechanic to deal with, but most don't tend to do very much outside of vomiting AoE at a random player's feet every few seconds. It's not very interesting the first time, much less the fiftieth. I'd like more mobs that do things you have to work around more often. Perhaps they could even try experimenting with packs consisting of semi-random selections of mobs each instance, though I'm unsure if that's even possible for them to do.

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The dungeons used to have mechanics and things going on - places you needed to sleep enemies and think carefully about your pulls. But people complained and whined because "mechanics are for cars" and everything had to be wall to wall pulls, so that's what they have now. Nothing even remotely interesting, and any dungeons that requires any kind of awareness (Stone Vigil is a major culprit), people struggle with and hate. I think the longer the game goes on, the more it's an issue because the more experienced players just have no patience for anything.