Mechanics to add variety to dungeon mobs

Below are some mechanics that could be used to add to standard mobs some tactical element, requiring players to pay more attention to things happening between bosses. They can be seen as buffs on mobs at all times, where applicable.

Pack Member (Buff): A member of a pack.
No effect on its own. Necessary for different mechanics.

Strength in Numbers (Buff): Strengthened by other pack members attacking the target.
When a pack member with this ability attacks a player, that player receives a debuff stacked to the amount of pack members for which he is at the top of the enmity list. The members of the pack with this ability are then significantly more dangerous based on that number, so even small packs of weak mobs can be deadly. HP, defense and attack are strengthened. Current HP is decreased along with max HP if one of the pack members dies or is pulled by someone else.

Leader of the Pack (Buff): Strengthened by other pack members in vicinity.
Doesn't care about the pack members aggro target. Its radius may be fixed or based on individual mob (at which point it should be mentioned in the buff description). The boost should be high enough to make even a single three-mob pull a challenge to bring to a Leader of the Pack, making it a sort of wall that can be dealt with by a DPS pulling it to the side.

Tyrant (Activated Buff): Forces those nearby into its pack./Added to the pack.
A cast skill that will constantly turn every mob around it (radius should be shown by a small, glowing circle around it) into a pack member. This skill should have cast time and should be used first thing in battle (in place of an attack, not on aggro), to allow melee members to enter mob groups to pull a Tyrant away from the pack without being one-hit-killed in the process.

Alpha/Omega (Buffs): Powers up when near Omega/Alpha.
It's present in this game already. This could be used to make it more obvious and to use it on standard mobs in dungeons without any issues.

Healer/Fighter Hunter (Buffs): Focuses on enemies with high healing/offensive capabilities.
Basically a buff that negates (or turns into negative) enmity bonuses on tank skills. Healer hunter reverses healing and damage enmity generation on top of that. Provoke puts tank on top of their enmity list as normal, but is short-lived. This is the skill most meant to force DPS into paying attention, as they need to kill the mobs before they slaughter the healer. Their stats should be based around them attacking the healer/DPS, not the tank.

Weakling Hunter (Buffs): Focuses on the weakest person.
Similar to healer and fighter hunter in concept, but enmity bonuses are ignored while healing and damage generate it normally. Instead of going after the highest enmity though, weakling hunter goes after the person with the least enmity (possibly the tank, or lazy DPS).

Commandeer (Buff): Able to command others in vicinity.
Simply shows that the mob is able to issue commands (see below).

Command (Active)
Creates a debuff on player (chosen at random, or targeted by the user of Command that have one of the Hunter traits) which makes them the targets of other mobs attacks regardless of enmity. The debuff goes away after a time or if the one issuing the command dies.

Under Command (Buff): Following a command of his superior.
Simply shows that a mob is not affected by enmity, as well as for how long the effect lasts.


Many of these depend on the DPS doing their share of crowd control, but they also validate skills that cause Bind or Sleep in everyday situations. If mobs that attack the healers are mixed into a bunch and the DPS focus on the group instead of the stray that the tank cannot grab, the group may actually wipe to standard mobs. By clever use of mobs with AoE, including silence-causing/mp draining, one can prevent that healer to approach the group in order to put it into the DPS's AoE range as well. Adding a Leader of the Pack with Tyrant into a group of mobs will force the tank to pull the group by generating enmity on a weak mob, while the DPS pulls the leader away from the rest to deal with it separately. The party would then need to work on 'two fronts', either giving priority to clearing the mob first, or leaving it to the tank while the DPS and healer attack the leader.


Any other suggestions as to how turn the mundane battles could be require a bit more strategy beyond class rotation?! I'd like to hear em too.

These are all great. Anything that gets us closer to extreme dungeons to keep dungeons alive is a great thing.

It doesn't even have to be as hard as extreme primals
Make it somewhere between dungeon difficulty and extreme primals

Super interesting in theory, implimentation and the overhaul required would be hugely expensive but I would still love to play this dungeon.

Also come at me healer hunter, I'll stunlock you with Holy like everything else.

all this will do is stop people from doing dungeons.

unique mechanics are nice and all, but once its worn off (aka after the first run) it's annoying and i will just pvp for my seals since dungeons will take longer/more wipes because of players who don't care.

the other thing to remember any monster that is going to ignore the tank is going to do basically no damage or their attacks will all be dodge able aoes meaning the mechanic is lost/ignored because if they did any real damage it would be wipe city, that's why the random target bosses are weak/dodgable.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

all this will do is stop people from doing dungeons.

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Ya, in reality Dungeons should be renamed "Adventures" since that's what they are. They are story-driven adventures that always go down the same path. Now if they were to release actual dungeons with different paths and focus on keeping players on their toes, the above could work. Sadly these adventures are designed to help players gear up, nothing more. When they design the Adventures they do it with 20-30 min completion time in mind, since they can't break that mold the dungeons have to remain stagnant in design with limited to no RNG.

I don't have much to contribute but i always thought garlean enemies should have a 'leader of the pack' style system when a centurion is around, as they have little functions aside from being damage sponges compared to the other garlean enemies.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

all this will do is stop people from doing dungeons.

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I disagree. It would stop some people from doing dungeons, but those people are usually the ones you don't really want in your party in the first place. The lazy sort that doesn't want to care about what the heck is happening, cause they are doing something else and want to just spam few buttons while doing so.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

unique mechanics are nice and all, but once its worn off (aka after the first run) it's annoying and i will just pvp for my seals since dungeons will take longer/more wipes because of players who don't care.

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Players will start to care if these and similar would become something regular. And it not being "fresh" on second and latter runs doesn't change the fact that it can still be fun.

Using your argument that once you do it, it's not something you care to do anymore, I don't know why you're still playing. Anything at all. Everything that happens in any game is something you have been doing at some point in some game. What's new?! Story...maybe...So yeah, maybe it's worth playing until the part where you're saving the world all the same. In this game in particular, once you do the first two or three dungeons, there's nothing new. Just different graphics slapped on top. Every fodder fight is the same, like..literally. From a ranged persons perspective, there's only two possibilities to consider, and maybe 90% if not more belong to one of them. The mobs have long-range AoE (like those Magitek Colossus do) which may end up aimed at where you are...or they don't. If they don't, you do the exact same thing and wouldn't even notice being in a different dungeon. Healers at least need to react to the tanks health dropping.
PvP is actually the same. Once you play the map once, there's nothing fresh in it at all.

But do you know what's making it a bit more interesting?! Variety. Even if you repeat the same actions over and over again, so long as there are MORE actions that are repeated, it takes longer to get bored of them. These are supposed to do just that. Prevent every fight from being the same. If 10% of fodder would play like this, 10% like that, 10% yet differently and so on...the dungeons would actually take longer to get bored of. As a healer, the most interesting part of healing on fodders to me is the changing of targets from tank to mobs and from mobs to tank. Seriously, I'm not joking. Cause it makes me do something more than just push a few buttons over and over. There's some actual thinking added, too.

These don't have to make dungeon more difficult. By properly controlling the mobs stats, they would be quite easy to deal with, without any detriment to the length of dungeons. Ultimately, if there's the same amount of "HP" to take down and the same amount of "length" to walk, the time it will take will be roughly the same as well. These would just add some necessity to placing though into spreading the damage differently when making dungeons, cause some of these mobs simply could not be killed as a group. That's the point of their design, after all. Not hard to compensate for at all, though.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

the other thing to remember any monster that is going to ignore the tank is going to do basically no damage or their attacks will all be dodge able aoes meaning the mechanic is lost/ignored because if they did any real damage it would be wipe city, that's why the random target bosses are weak/dodgable.

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What a lazy answer. If mobs can be balanced around the tank getting whacked left and right and prove some challenge (without making it too hard), the same can be done with mobs that go after other party members. Sure, at high enough gear, they will become noticeably weaker in comparison, but that's why tanks make multiple pulls in the first place, and that would mean that on healers/DPS there would potentially be multiple mobs as well.

Not all random attacks are weak. The golem in temple of quarn is entirely random, and he really CAN hit. I mean, bad. And his stunning punch, dealing high damage, is also undodgeable, possibly opening the person for a death on next hit, if he will follow it up with a high-range AoE with the person being cornered. Happened in parties I was in. There's just nothing that can be done about that.

Large part of the reason why the random attacks are mostly irrelevant is because they are not followed up. The healer have all the time in the world to recover from them. But if there was a mob constantly of the healer, that would be a non-issue. It would need to be killed, unless the mobs die fast enough while the tank can be healed easily even with a random instant cast here or there to make the healer kiting the mob enough. Then again, that's already different too. Good enough in its own way.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

Large part of the reason why the random attacks are mostly irrelevant is because they are not followed up. The healer have all the time in the world to recover from them. But if there was a mob constantly of the healer, that would be a non-issue. It would need to be killed, unless the mobs die fast enough while the tank can be healed easily even with a random instant cast here or there to make the healer kiting the mob enough. Then again, that's already different too. Good enough in its own way.

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Trash groups should remain trash, with some minor abilities too keep things interesting. Sure, you can add the occasionaly spongy, hard hitting dude inbetween (like the colossi and vanguard in doma), but anything more than that and people will take issue with it.
I don't need another level of problems like Biasts from the Aery or Sordets from Neverreap with their neverending cone/aoe attacks, which forces me to dodge them every second.
Dodging means distraction, distractions means DPS loss. And that is always a hazzle.

The dungeons need to be grindable for future content (relics, roulettes) or else we face another disaster like the Steps of Fate.

This just sounds like another version of those ideas to stop big pulls. There's nothing interesting about "focus Wolf Leader or wipe", which is what they all sound like. No thanks.

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Originally Posted by Arrius

I don't need another level of problems like Biasts from the Aery or Sordets from Neverreap with their neverending cone/aoe attacks, which forces me to dodge them every second.
Dodging means distraction, distractions means DPS loss. And that is always a hazzle.

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The only part where I mentioned a lot of AoE's is to prevent a healer from dragging in a mob that focuses on healing to the remainder of the pull, to make the DPS mindlessly throwing out AoE's a viable option. And if you think that's something you would need to avoid, then I think you did not read carefully.

The AoE's in question would be irrelevant to melee fighters (except Red Mage going into melee, or the situation where Dark Knight wants to cast Unleash). As a melee, you hardly (if at all) care about getting silenced or having your MP emptied. A healer, on the other hand, very much does care. None of the casters have much of a reason to approach the group though if that's the case. And having every pull be like that is not going to change much of anything either. Dungeons need variety, not more of the same...just a bit different kind than before.


I am not suggesting anything that would make the dungeons harder. I am suggesting something that would make them different. Not something that would require players to try and form complicated strategies. Something that would make players follow the plain obvious path, that is different from the norm. No one have any problem with healers or DPS classes having to do more than just spam their buttons all the time in mostly any other MMO I played. Why the heck is this suddenly a problem here?! The only reason why so many people don't give much of a damn in the average content is because they don't NEED to. They will STILL be able to clear it. Make very simple changes that will force a change in playstyle, without being complicated themselves, and people will easily adapt.

You complain about the dungeons being a chore, yet you want them to stay being a chore. Where's the logic in that?! Repetitiveness is a chore. It is a psychological trait natural to all humans that is considered a detrimental work condition. Governements, psychologists and work safety regulation groups all agree that wherever possible, even small changes to the repetitive nature of the jobs can have significant impact of the safety, efficiency and acceptability of the job. And you want the repetitiveness, that so many people want to combat...to stay?! Yeah, I don't understand you one bit.

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Originally Posted by Launched

This just sounds like another version of those ideas to stop big pulls. There's nothing interesting about "focus Wolf Leader or wipe", which is what they all sound like. No thanks.

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So you prefer an artificial wall every other pull that you cannot pass at all, even when being 20+ levels above the dungeon in an unsynced run?!...Okey...No wonder the games are so overly simplified nowadays if those are peoples expectations.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

I disagree.

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you shouldn't just shrug off a portion of the player base just because you don't agree with how they play.
if they are a large enough group you can hurt your player population.

your second point to me is moot, *it may not be fresh but it can still be fun* after the first run the only reason to run a dungeon/raid again is for gear/achievements/mounts the more annoying it becomes the less worth it is to rerun it, variety or not once we have what we want we aren't going to be doing it anymore other then for friends/or some random roulette que in the future.

and point 3 no the golem doesn't hit hard yes he hits with a knockback/stun and then can aoe you and if you position wrong it can kill you but that doesn't change that his first hit was weak then you were standing in a avoidable aoe. which is exactly what i said earlier.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

you shouldn't just shrug off a portion of the player base just because you don't agree with how they play.
if they are a large enough group you can hurt your player population.

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Um...I see very many people complaining about dungeons being boring and a chore...and I see very few complaining that the dungeons are too difficult or that they should be simplified. I obviously don't really see people saying that the dungeons are fine the way they are. So which group is the larger?!

Well, communications have such a thing to them that they are more likely to attract naysayers, regardless of what would be posted. The people that would agree with something, reading it written by someone they have no connection with at all, are likely to just nod to themselves and pass. Ask around in a group you are familiar with and suddenly the ratio is likely to be different, because people are more likely to actually answer even if they agree.

So yes. I don't shrug any problem of any part of the community. I merely suggest a solution to a problem that was frequenty brought up on these forums alone.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

your second point to me is moot, *it may not be fresh but it can still be fun* after the first run the only reason to run a dungeon/raid again is for gear/achievements/mounts the more annoying it becomes the less worth it is to rerun it, variety or not once we have what we want we aren't going to be doing it anymore other then for friends/or some random roulette que in the future.

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And that's perfectly fine. Never did I say otherwise either. But while there is something you need in it, be it experience from the roulette or a faction member wanting help with the queue for it...you do run it. And if you do run it, adding variety will have its intended effect while you do.

What actually makes you annoyed in these suggestions?! That's what I don't get. As I said repeatedly, they in no way affect difficulty in and off themselves, and whether they affect clear time is entirely dependent on how the developers would want to make the dungeon. All they do is make slight variations to gameplay to mix things up a little. Bosses make that A LOT. And you know what?! Bosses are the most enjoyable content for vast majority of the playerbase. I can complain about Titan all I want, but the fact is that even though his instant-kill is annoying, largely cause it prevents revival, really, the necessity to adapt to his actions makes the run way more fun than brain-dead dungeon runs. I can complain about Susano O due to how much damage output he brings to the table in quick succession, but past that, it's more fun of a fight than with yer average "zombie" bosses that are there just to have jacked up health and a bit more AoE's.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

and point 3 no the golem doesn't hit hard yes he hits with a knockback/stun and then can aoe you and if you position wrong it can kill you but that doesn't change that his first hit was weak then you were standing in a avoidable aoe. which is exactly what i said earlier.

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About or more than half health is weak?! Alright...

In case you didn't notice, EVERYTHING in this game is survivable or avoidable. That's why this is a game. Using the argument that people are likely to survive a golem more often than not is just ridiculous. What matters is that it can kill if there's a lapse of judgement, or just plain bad luck involved. That's how EVERYTHING in RPG games is. Then what are you complaining about?! The very essence of this game being a game, thus having ways to win, and that means that people that know how to win will win regularly?!

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Originally Posted by kikix12

So which group is the larger?!

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the forums isn't the whole population and people don't normally go out of their way to constantly say they like something, like they would when they don't like something.
i am not saying more people like the dungeons how they are i am simply saying it's not as easy as saying welp people are complaining so this will make everyone happy.
you can easily find out more people liked it the old way then new and it be to late to do anything as the damage is done. it's a word of caution.

second, well it is adding difficulty that is the point of mechanics if they don't follow they wipe. you are saying from going from no mechanic other then burn them down to pulling/killing based on monster buffs.

annoyed in the suggestions? i am not annoyed you suggested them i am simply putting in my thoughts on your suggestions since they would affect me and everyone else.


once again you are over thinking the golem, the point is with it being random it is greatly weakened vs if it focused a single target the whole battle. its the exact opposite to titan since he is 100% scripted and you can get his battle pattern down to perfection he hits hard and is way less forgiving. (also he is a primal and meant to be harder)

this is the same to say monsters who wouldn't target your tank ever they would deal less damage due to if they didn't they would easily wipe dps/healers who didn't follow the mechanics making the dungeons harder due to it being easier to wipe.

which leaves me to my beginning statement *it would make people stop running dungeons* the harder it is to beat content as pugs pulls people away from duty finder

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

the forums isn't the whole population and people don't normally go out of their way to constantly say they like something, like they would when they don't like something.

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I know. After all, it's about the same thing I said just above.

But the fact is that many people do consider dungeons a chore. I don't know how many people are on which side of the fence, and neither do you, but this is an ongoing MMO game, so changes will be made to it. But redoing the content the same way all the time will get nowhere. It could easily be tested with an optional dungeon on the side, and that would not result in any strong waves in the population even if it was found bad. On the other hand, it could be successful (or at least, more so than other dungeons) and could prove valuable to involve more in future developments.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

second, well it is adding difficulty that is the point of mechanics if they don't follow they wipe. you are saying from going from no mechanic other then burn them down to pulling/killing based on monster buffs.

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I'm sorry, but I guess that to begin with, we have different understand of what difficulty is. If I can do something without having to force myself to be efficient and with little to no chance of failure, it's not difficult. The only chance of failure would come from people not knowing these buffs/not reading them. But that's not difficulty. That's just a bad player, and those appear now and cause wipes on those dumb-as-a-rock mobs we have now.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

annoyed in the suggestions? i am not annoyed you suggested them i am simply putting in my thoughts on your suggestions since they would affect me and everyone else.

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Hm. Maybe I misworded it. What I meant is, how they would annoy you if they were implemented. What in them is so annoying that you are so opposed to them. Having to control your target cannot possibly be that, since that's actually what needs to be done now anyway the moment your TP for AoE's goes down. Focusing on one enemy with single target hits is vastly preffered and that is a way to "choose targets". So I am asking just what is the problem. You didn't actually say that, just in general that these would make the runs annoying. And that doesn't say anything.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

which leaves me to my beginning statement *it would make people stop running dungeons* the harder it is to beat content as pugs pulls people away from duty finder

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But I do not see the difficulty of going after the mob that attacks the healer. That's a perfectly natural reaction that is present in just about any MMO out there. This is the first MMO where people I know are the only ones using tactics such as kiting, healers pulling the mobs they aggroed to tanks rather than wait for tanks to get them or DPS protecting the healers (slight exaggeration, as there were extremely limited few these applied to as well). These are basic tactics that you see virtually everywhere in most other party-based MMO's with some defined roles. Most MMO's are not so forgiving with generating aggro/enmity/hate/whatever you call it. And there are still countless people that play them and wouldn't even understand why you use the word "difficulty" in the same sentence as talking about protecting the healer. Isn't that just normal?! It's as basic as pushing skill B after skill A because it's a combo. Sure, you can screw it up once in a while, but you can both easily recover from it as well as do it instinctively.


I quite honestly do not see how this would make the dungeons too difficult compared to other content. It's far easier to screw up in PvP. It's far easier to screw up in fates by pulling other mobs from the area.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

The AoE's in question would be irrelevant to melee fighters...

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Aaand, that's where you lost me. If you don't even understand which monsters I am refering to and what they do, then don't bother bringing up these statements.
With that, you discredited yourself and those fancy words are nothing more than just mucked up nonsense for me.

If the goal is to stop people from doing big pulls, but without having to add a wall in between each pull...

Then the dungeons should be shorter (fewer pulls), and the packs themselves should be considerably more threatening than they are now. Right now you can coast through single pulls with barely more healing needed than a fairy or regen in most situations, and with no cooldowns required from the tank. So it shouldn't be a surprise that people want to speed it along to double/triple pulls. Because they can.

If enemies were much stronger then more effort would be required on the whole from the group, and mass pulling becomes too risky unless you massively outgear the dungeon (which can be fixed by implementing an ilvl ceiling). Good groups would probably still be able to double pull perhaps, but with individual enemies being much harder hitting and healthier, trying to AoE burn down multiple groups becomes less feasable for an average DF group.

That would be much easier than trying to add in a bunch of extra mechanics for the sake of it. Save that sort of stuff for potential 'extreme dungeons' or something.

If these changes are supposed to go into expert dungeons that you run for tomestones, forget it. It's done just to get tomes as quickly as possible and be done with it. There's no point in dragging it out any longer than needs be.

As it was, SE already said HW was too complicated. That's why everything has become simpler (and TBH, I'm rather thankful for this because EVERYTHING was a massive endeavor). Crafting was complicated, rotations and upkeeping DPS was complicated, mechanics were complicated, etc. Literally, everything was too complicated in their opinion. Everything became more streamlined (hence why AoE circles were changed, why we have more icons for specific things, why we have job specific HUDs).

It really reads a lot like those threads trying to curb speedrunning.

The "mechanics" themselves aren't particularly interesting, ignoring aggro means a bit more unavoidable/non-interactive damage going out, which is irrelevant outside of large pulls because healers can easily lolerase it (Heck, you can do dungeons without a tank entirely already!) and a pack bonus is also irrelevant outside of large pulls. You might as well put highly damaging Miasma all over the dungeon that clears bit by bit as you do packs. Or, simply put up a good, ole fashioned wall. All of these things ultimately achieve the same purpose.

Personally, I don't really find that fun. If they were to add more mechanics to dungeons, I'd rather they work with AoEs and safe-zones, tethers, gazes, special platforms and the like.
Though honestly... tank and spank is pretty much the defining gameplay of a trinity game, the epitome of the role setup, so I don't see an issue in keeping dungeons tailored to that either.

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Originally Posted by Arrius

Aaand, that's where you lost me. If you don't even understand which monsters I am refering to and what they do, then bother bringing up these statements.
With that, you discredited yourself and those fancy words are just mucked up nonsense for me.

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Huh?! I know what you meant by Biasts in Aery and what not, but this is not about Aery. How is that relevant to this discussion?! I assumed you used it as an example to counter my suggestion of implementing the healer hunters, because that's the only part of my post where that is relevant.

You don't even bring any argument to the table to begin with. You talked about not wanting to have more AoE's to dodge, while there is zero in this thread, other than from what you said, that would make you dodge any AoE's. So I think you need to start reading carefully, and you'll notice that there is some actual sense in what I wrote.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

Um...I see very many people complaining about dungeons being boring and a chore...and I see very few complaining that the dungeons are too difficult or that they should be simplified. I obviously don't really see people saying that the dungeons are fine the way they are. So which group is the larger?!

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What you aren't seeing is the group of people that are perfectly content with the dungeons right now. As far as which group is biggest? Only a full-game mandatory survey could tell. I know many friends in-game that enjoy dungeons as the mindless, relaxing, button-mashing fests they are. Even i enjoy coming home from work and relaxing with some casual dungeons before I raid that night.

The biggest problem with your ideas is that you're targeting the content that is most played by the playerbase, which serves as one of, if not the primary dispenser of tomestones, or serve as a means of leveling, used as pieces for the story, or any combination. They need to be accessible to all players, of all skill levels, concentration levels and 99.9% of playstyles. Your ideas (in their current form) are better suited to pre-made party content, like potentially adding "extreme" dungeons that are entirely optional and not tied to any roulette and would require a full party before queuing in.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Your ideas (in their current form) are better suited to pre-made party content, like potentially adding "extreme" dungeons that are entirely optional and not tied to any roulette and would require a full party before queuing in.

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Make it give 180 tomestones minimum and I'll run that. Make it worth my time if my time is going to be taxed so heavily.

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Originally Posted by kikix12

I quite honestly do not see how this would make the dungeons too difficult compared to other content.

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well the biggest point against what you are saying is dungeons difficulty isn't to be compared to other content, its suppose to be easy and fast so that players with less time can still go for their gear upgrades while not having a lot of time/skill.

also what is easy for you can be hard for someone else, if there is more you have to pay attention to it makes it harder to do normal things.
you could say *well this is a basic when playing games and everyone should be able to do it* but then we are getting into personal standards based on our own personal abilities.

i will use your example with the healer yes it is normal to protect your healer but what you are saying is instead of just say using provoke and getting aggro that, that is useless so you get aggro on everything else then focus that monster down.
this gives you a variety of options does this monster hit hard? is it a hp sponge? can you just stack everyone on the healer aoe it down and just ignore the mechanic altogether.
depending on the answer you have either a worthless mechanic that does nothing OR a huge road block that greatly affect how the dungeon is run.

adjusting difficulty for the average player isn't easy for the past what 4 years now? they have constantly gotten mixed messages from too easy to too hard.

also i want to also say we got job gauges because watching buffs is too hard (i understand that it's different from monster buffs) but its still one more things players have to constantly watch for (is this a alpha monster, is it one that attacks the lowest enmity player?) you are putting more focus on what the players base is said to be specifically bad at.

Not saying I want this but the too hard argument comes in with reflex mechanics.

The game already wants you to do this strict set rotation which requires watching your UI often. When it compounds this by making you also watch split second mechanics, this is when the skill gap starts. So if rotations were less UI dependant then a system with more visual tells would work better. More cerebral and less reflexive. More variety would be good for human partys if those mechanics were global traits. I don't see it happening in experience story parties.

I like this idea, a sort of "Savage" mode of normal dungeons.

An MMO I hate to admit playing that I will not name out of embarrassment does this with their endgame dungeons, a harder version your party can choose to enter or ignore, enemies and bosses work slightly differently, more damage and health, but in return, better rewards if you survive.

Anything to change the current "Big pulls, big deeps" meta we are currently in.

Although the previous statements ring true when it comes to most dungeon runs the way they are now. I could see this work in a Palace of the Dead type environment.

This is a great start towards something that could make dungeons more fun / shorter and teach people a thing or two the hard way..

Like someone said though, it would require an overhaul of the dungeons. Which I think we're really past due for a QoL adjustment. Just adjusting the # of mobs, increasing the XP and shortening the paths mixed with this would bring things up a bit.

I'm taking this as a rough draft, though others here see it as its final documentation. This is an idea to expand on.

Taking this idea and putting it in say Sastasha. A lot of the trash mobs up to the first boss can be removed and placed in with something else. Stick with the groups of two and add in one odd-ball to the side. Get them use to Pack members and calling in an occasional 3rd mob.

Thinking of it later, to have a mob turn and attack with a random attack to a player would make you want to use Cover, or low blow or the DPS can stun lock the guy.

As an additional mode, a "Savage Dungeon" style implementation, I could see this working.

The last time I saw a game try and up the difficulty with bigger changes in the regularly run dungeons it ended backfiring pretty badly, so I'm not optimistic it would work here either. More likely that it would lead to just a smaller set of players running dungeons, and increasingly longer queues as a result.

Essentially Mythic+ dungeons, which this game could really use.

Yes please, for the love of god, yes. This would add both interesting mechanics and content longevity if implemented well.

I like these ideas! They'd certainly add new flavour to dungeons. I really like the leader of pack idea. I think that could work great if implemented right!

Throwing in some random ideas here, but maybe have enemies with certain auras emanating from them, like a ice sprite causing frostbite to players around it, or malboros causing poison (they do stink after all XD)

I loved my enchanter back in EverQuest and adore true crowd control situations, but the abilities we have in this game are garbage and this would just lead to constant wipes. SE doesn't give us the tools for true crowd control, unfortunately.

I don't know if these suggestions may be useful or not, but I'm agree with anyone think that dungeons are too boring!
A better AI for mobs is good for me, specially for humanoid enemies (also logical for these).
In my opinion dungeons should be little worlds, always unpredictable in terms of enemies, events, difficulty, strategy and rewards.
Also not all dungeons should have the same duration, complexity, layout or number of bosses.
I just wonder why farm time must be synonimous of boring time.
Just give a good reason to repeat any dungeon and players will do it anyway.

That's the problem though, they might be called dungeons but they aren't, they are adventures that you can repeat. There isn't one dungeon that doesn't have a story to it. I would like actual dungeons with a POTD like feel to it, maybe modular where the setup can always change and even beating/how you beat a boss or how long you take or move you use can influence future paths.

Like let's say 2nd boss has a bomb monster and if you allow it to explode at a certain spot it will open a new path, the risk being that you have to make sure the boss is low enough when it uses it's explosion otherwise you die(in this case the dungeon would end if all fall during combat much like POTD).

But varied actual dungeon content like that would be nice, we don't currently have that with these adventures. We have set pieces that only serve to help teach players new mechanics while also offering them a quick way to cap their weekly tomes.

I'm not sure how I feel about these particular buffs, but I'm not averse to the general idea. It would be nice to consider the ARPG system of adding random modifiers to create occasion surprise 'champion' mobs just to keep dungeons feeling fresh and slightly randomized each time. Nothing too chaotic, at least not on the normal dungeon runs. Even just things like 'enemy splits into 3 when killed' or 'immune to stun' and similar modifiers would be very interesting. I was kind of hoping for this with PoTD, actually.