Dungeons design philosephy needs to be changed

Dungeons have been lacklustre for years. they all have the same formula.
Only difference is the environment with almost no personality to it except the tiny little extra called music.

Now, I’m not trying to say make it harder. What I’m trying to say is make it interesting, fun and engaging. Make it an Adventure and not just braindead daily chore for rewards.

In my humble opinion ARR and some HW dungeons could be the best if only most of your abilities weren’t locked and echo/ilvl isn’t trivialising it to a meme category. let me talk about the things these 2 old expansions did well :

-mobs feel in their right place. Ambador Keep for example has Dullahan patrolling hallways and big yards, statues come to life, succubus throws big aoe from a distance. They add flavour to the dungeon. In contrast to the newer dungeons, they’re just there. Their whole existence revolves around standing still waiting for WoL to pull and kill them. You can’t sneak your way because they’ll aggro anyway.

Another thing is that mobs are huge in numbers for 0 reason. Nothing special happens except every 15 seconds a random mob will pull out a cone/aoe that a lvl10 crab in La Noscea can do. I’m advocating for less mobs with 1-2 more abilities in their disposal than disguised striking dummies that auto attacks back with occasional aoe.

-bosses in old dungeons were unique and some had a gimmick to deal with. Now it’s all the same 1 aoe, 1 Tankbuster, 1 telegraphed basic mech and just a single unique mech. That’s not bad btw, it’s just the repetition cycle what kills the fun out of it. I’ll give an example of the first final boss in Tam-Tara. The boss doesn’t have much except that it summons trash mobs to protect him. Now the key here is that as the time goes he summons more trash mobs which adds more tension to it. It’s so simple yet works so well! Tldr of this is instead of using same basic mechs why not add more to that one unique mech along they way?

Regarding the boss arena idk what’s the fixation about square and circular arenas. It’s way too bland and inconvenient. Here’s where ARR bosses shine. The prime example for this would be the Doom Wall, such a cool arena for a boss that has only 2 abilities and get demolished before establishing any threat. Another example would be the Aurom Vale last boss, the poisonous puddles and how you need to eat herbs to cure the debuff, that’s cool! That’s personality!

-Exploring and progression in the old dungeons was rewarding even tho it isn’t much. It’s just that you go out of your way for the extra treasure coffers, you solve puzzles, avoid traps, you collect some little lore around and engage with the environment around you. Now? A completely linear path filled with mobs and walls, let alone how convenient the path lay out for the mighty WoL. No effort at all, you run and kill mobs, you almost never interact with the environment around you.

Too much yapping but it had to be said.

as long as i am not forced pick up keys and get asked if i want to use them every time , sure.

Just curious, but have you not played Dawntrail yet? These new dungeons are a step above anything we've had for three whole expansions.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

Just curious, but have you not played Dawntrail yet? These new dungeons are a step above anything we've had for three whole expansions.

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I completely disagree. All they did was give the bosses more mechanics with tighter tuning. It is still a boring trek through trash mobs. And then once you have the boss down, it's the same repetition.

And it made it MUCH less enjoyable for me. I was not ready for this level of skill requirement in MSQ. And found it very frustrating and unenjoyable.

So for me they failed on both accounts. It is still boring AND it is frustrating.

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Originally Posted by Ori

So for me they failed on both accounts. It is still boring AND it is frustrating.

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Agreed, especially for trusts, which is the option that older players or people with mobility issues often choose to avoid inconveniencing other people in instances. The npc's are programmed to mess up on purpose, so if you park yourself on top of one of them attempting to avoid big AoE's, they will move at the last possible second and being a step behind often means getting spanked with a massive hit. Or just squat in the middle of it like a sitting duck

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Originally Posted by dullneedles

Agreed, especially for trusts, which is the option that older players or people with mobility issues often choose to avoid inconveniencing other people in instances. The npc's are programmed to mess up on purpose, so if you park yourself on top of one of them attempting to avoid big AoE's, they will move at the last possible second and being a step behind often means getting spanked with a massive hit. Or just squat in the middle of it like a sitting duck

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Completely agree. It's like they do not want Trusts to be a good learning mechanic.

I really get the impression they are blindly following some design philosophy without taking a moment to question if it makes any sense.

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Originally Posted by Ori

. It's like they do not want Trusts to be a good learning mechanic.

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That’s exactly how they’re supposed to work though. Trusts are intentionally built to work inefficiently and randomly fail mechanics specifically so they cannot substitute for normal party members or give clear times close to DF speed

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Originally Posted by dullneedles

The npc's are programmed to mess up on purpose, so if you park yourself on top of one of them attempting to avoid big AoE's, they will move at the last possible second and being a step behind often means getting spanked with a massive hit. Or just squat in the middle of it like a sitting duck

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I haven't seen this happen. Ever.
The only "mess up" that they do is when you walk into their predetermined spot to dodge a mechanic (e.g. Krile and Yshtola in the level 93 dungeon stealing the melee safespot), or you intentionally clip them with a tank buster.

Trusts do mess up, take a look at Krile or Wuk Lamat in some fights, even Alisae. They make less experienced fighters mess something up the first time they see it, or someone thats a bit more reckless like Alisae take a few risks that backfire every now and then.

They do end up learning after seeing a attack once or twice, but each one of them has a few quirks

The halls between bosses should be more than just a time sink where you pull chumps and spam buttons on the chumps till they melt. I get there being a certain number of dungeons that follow the cookie cutter format (namely story specific dungeons), but a lot of the optional dungeons or even final MSQ dungeons could stand to have more interesting mechanic designs. ARR clearly swung and miss with a lot of unique dungeon gimmicks, but I don't think that was any reason to completely give up.