Concerns for the new Dawntrail Deep Dungeons

Seeing how Eureka Orthos has been mildly received or badly received at worst, and overall dead not long after release in spite of being the deep dungeon of the three that requires the most top floor clears to get every goodie from it, I can't help but worry for the next one to come.

I don't think personally that Orthos is bad in any way, but it's definitely a step down from previous deep dungeons, and I do hope the devs are considering rethinking their design process when it comes to that particular type of content. HoH and PotD were more universally liked and had a great shelf life in comparison, and I'm not just talking about the leveling sections, but the optional floors as well: in both cases, Orthos has never met the success of the two others.

I'd like to hear more feedback from actual deep dungeon aficionados and people that have spent significant amounts of time in the three of them? What have been your experiences?

When it comes to Orthos I haven't done much because even in peak times, on Aether, it usually runs over 30 minutes for entry and that was before our population plummeted, which is frankly a waste of time. Idk about Orthos but I know HoH is gated behind PotD completion, which is also not quick anymore and just silly. It does nothing but lock ppl out for no real good reason other than they want to force ppl to complete the deep dungeon content on their terms, not the players. There is literally no need for this restriction, so hopefully they remove it.

I did like how HoH felt a lot different from PotD with a newish layout, different floor combinations including just large rooms and pomanders that felt good to use, but Orthos just felt the same as PotD with more dmg sponge enemies and all the more interesting stuff from HoH removed. I would like them to innovate again, maybe even incorperate a few things like Nyzul Isle in FFXI (which was clearly the inspration in the first place) into it, like the NMs that drop ??? gear that can be appraised into drops from other content, or objectives like lamps or only killing certain enemy types, avoiding discovery, free floors, etc. instead of just having the whole thing be "kill enemies until gate unlocks", but looking at the rest of the game I am not holding my breath.

Disclaimer: haven't cleared any of the DDs, have gotten to at least 70 in HoH and EO (solo in HoH's case) and solo 100 in PotD. I probably have spent more time in DDs than one would expect from someone who considers themselves a casual DD enjoyer at the most.

Orthos' main issue is every enemy being a ridiculous HP sponge, to the point where "any DPS" is recommended for soloing over the tanks, but even with a sizeable aetherpool number it's still a slog taking down enemies, plus now you also have to worry about staying alive as a squishy DPS. You can start out from very low aetherpool in PotD or HoH and still be able to take out enemies in a reasonable amount of time, even on a tank; but in EO it's a chore even at 60-70+ aetherpool right from the very first floor.
There is also the fact that the enemies are a lot less mechanically forgiving than the other two DDs right from the jump, rather than the difficulty spiking by the time you get well past 50. Lots of one-shot mechanics with very late telegraphs so it's a lot more focused on "die to this and remember it for next time"... which works fine for a one and done fight, not so much when you're basically being asked to commit an entire bestiary to memory, and that's not even counting the bosses which are noticeably more complex mechanically from the other 2 DDs. I actually don't mind this too much personally and I think it's more a symptom of Endwalker's overall fight design than anything else, but I know it definitely made a lot of people bounce off EO much faster than they probably would have otherwise.


But the HP sponges are the real issue. If everything in Orthos had its HP cut in half, it'd immediately be a lot more enjoyable. Because I do really want to like it, I love the aesthetics and overall vibes of it, but actually playing through it is Not Fun... so I just end up going back to HoH instead, which I think is probably the best of the 3 DDs at the moment.

I dont know on which dc you are on, but i on Chaos and Light EO is the most common one in PF. Also maybe you dont know where to look? Many people do deep dungeons exclusively through discord lfgs to have some base guarantee that players joining will have some idea about what to do.
From what im seeing in score runners community, EO is very popular as its less rng dependant than HoH and not as long as palace.

I would say that indeed EO has problems.
Biggest offender is atrocious mob hp balancing. Mobs in 1-30 take longer to kill than in 31-50.
Another issue is unadressed run ending bugs that happen with lethargy and mobs that have long cast time out of combat abilities like fitters of 91-100 (Long cast becomes insta cast).
Mobs lack variance in terms of difficulty. Both palace and Hoh have that covered, mobs that really force your hand like flood dragons. You may say 'dread beasts' but those are 95% of time a forced storms or raising.

A party issue is that often a single player dooms the rest, for example lagging behind and pulling a patrol that does a massive aoe that rest dont have a way to get out of. With some being delayed telegraphs the issue can be really annoying

For EO's credit tho, it really rewards brave and risky plays and actually using your pomanders and clones (hoarding them is bad in other 2 also).



I guess we'll have to see what dd4 has to offer, i really hope for some enviromental variables.

Those bugs have been fixed as far as I know. Have not had any stored instakill moves hit me out of combat. Unless I am just lucky.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Seeing how Eureka Orthos has been mildly received or badly received at worst

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Enemies in Eureka Orthos got too much life, starting at floor 1, they need to adjust the enemies in there to be in line with potd and heavens on high.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

Those bugs have been fixed as far as I know. Have not had any stored instakill moves hit me out of combat. Unless I am just lucky.

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Pretty sure i've seen footage of it from 2 months ago max. Its rare but still exists.
At least 'crack-bear' gulo gulo bug got fixed

When an Fc friend returned and catched up, we tried some eureka... with another one we did clear palace and HoH before, but he didnt have time for the 3rd one so we wanted to use the chance. Yeah... we did 3 tries and i recalled why i abandoned it. Its not fun, its "too hard"... so much stuff that just kills you... youre in battle and someone else pulls something with large aoe? well youre dead. and it feels like they ramped up the roaming monster x3 at least lol

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Originally Posted by ThurinTurambar

I dont know on which dc you are on, but i on Chaos and Light EO is the most common one in PF. Also maybe you dont know where to look? Many people do deep dungeons exclusively through discord lfgs to have some base guarantee that players joining will have some idea about what to do.
From what im seeing in score runners community, EO is very popular as its less rng dependant than HoH and not as long as palace.

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Well then I may have been a bit misinformed. I don't spend a lot of time watching what crops up in PF all day long so I believe you. I'm all but a hardcore deep dungeon aficionado, and in fact decided recently to get back to it a little as I've done HoH back in its days to max floor and decided to do it for Orthos as well. The fact that score runners prefer something less rng saddens me a little, but it's also understandable.

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Originally Posted by ThurinTurambar

I would say that indeed EO has problems.
Biggest offender is atrocious mob hp balancing. Mobs in 1-30 take longer to kill than in 31-50.
Another issue is unadressed run ending bugs that happen with lethargy and mobs that have long cast time out of combat abilities like fitters of 91-100 (Long cast becomes insta cast).
Mobs lack variance in terms of difficulty. Both palace and Hoh have that covered, mobs that really force your hand like flood dragons. You may say 'dread beasts' but those are 95% of time a forced storms or raising.

A party issue is that often a single player dooms the rest, for example lagging behind and pulling a patrol that does a massive aoe that rest dont have a way to get out of. With some being delayed telegraphs the issue can be really annoying

For EO's credit tho, it really rewards brave and risky plays and actually using your pomanders and clones (hoarding them is bad in other 2 also).

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Yes it looks like the HP sponge problem has been brought up by everyone and it definitely echoes my own experience out of EO. That and it's way too DDR/cleave memory heavy to my taste, mobs are very much all samey (all hail the modern XIV encounter design...) and the bosses don't disappoint with that either, it's frankly boring/tedious and doesn't exactly encourage me to learn the bestiary with all the extremely binary "you're fine / you get one shot KO". I hope they do go back to the way more engaging mobs of the previous iterations.

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Originally Posted by ThurinTurambar

I guess we'll have to see what dd4 has to offer, i really hope for some enviromental variables.

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That would be nice, my personal hope is that they add room variations like they did for HoH with the big rooms, but better. I think one of the problems I have with deep dungeons layouts so far is that the common brick used for rooms is a little cube with very little to it, and it becomes extremely repetitive once you put them all back to back, and pepper spray them with mobs. If we had two or three more room patterns with more intricate layouts inside, like L shapes, or a twice bigger square here or there with things inside? Imagine stairs and some verticality between rooms too? That kind of things would really bring it flavor in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Well then I may have been a bit misinformed. I don't spend a lot of time watching what crops up in PF all day long so I believe you. I'm all but a hardcore deep dungeon aficionado, and in fact decided recently to get back to it a little as I've done HoH back in its days to max floor and decided to do it for Orthos as well. The fact that score runners prefer something less rng saddens me a little, but it's also understandable.

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I think its not sad, but rather obvious thing. Hoh can feel like a lottery with the number of big rooms you get (big rooms == much more kills) and the most powerful floor wipe items. I feel like score runners prefer to be judged by their skill instead of getting lucky, although its also a big part.
What i think both HoH and EO do right tho is how fast respawn timer becomes very big. Floors 31 onwards seem to all have 10 minute respawn schedule while palace respawns all all over the place, with floors 100-150 having 1.5 minute respawns. This is important for the gain that 'speedrun bonus' provides (worth 50 kills) and on high floors getting the speed bonus while killing everything can be extremely difficult and require immense skill. In case of palace however it can be questionable if its worth at all if you have to skip ~30 respawns to get that speed (you may get more kills from lurings as well).