Dungeons are in dire need of redesign

3-8 trash mobs- - - Boss - - - 3-8 trash mobs- - - - Boss - - - 3-8 trash mobs- - - Boss

Very very few dungeons differ from this formula, Bosses are completely fine in design difficulty and execution the trash between is so boring and monotonous for many dungeons. Their are some that follow the exact formula but with a twist like like hazards unexpected tank buster moves (Final sting) or debuffs or just massive aoes but so far that’s been more rare than I like it to be

Aurum Vale is the gold standard imo, it’s difficulty with the trash is suberp and bosses really make all parties focus not just the Healer.

A example of the worst is Sohm Al (Hard Mode) where I did the whole thing half asleep. I actually crashed mid fight and was still alive made me feel kinda pointless. All the dungeons getting easier doesn’t help much either

I agree. Dungeons need some serious reworking. Shadow Bringers looks gorgeous but, it's all just linear corridors to bosses. Older content is so trivialized now that I feel like lackluster DPS as a tank.

I am not very far into the game, and I haven't experienced a whole lot of FF14 dungeon content. However, I agree with the basic premise of your OP. This is a problem in just about every MMO I've played over the years. Trash mobs tend to be boring, especially when you are really good at playing your class/role; and even more so when all party members are good at what they are doing.

Every now and again an interesting boss mechanic will throw you for a loop the first time you run into it, and that's great. Bosses are supposed to be memorable, IMO, and they are supposed to make you work for the victory; that is until you've run the boss so many times you can do it in your sleep, which comes with the territory of grinding for gear.

However, I also would like to see more interesting mechanics implemented in-between bosses. One dungeon I have ran in FF14 that has done this is the Temple of Qarn, where you have to kill the block enemies on the specific tiles. As simple as this was, it broke the monotony of just sprinting to the next boss. Maybe there is more stuff like this in FF14, IDK, I'm not too far into the game yet.

I am a big fan of puzzles and interesting mob mechanics in any game. The first couple of times doing something out of the ordinary can be fun and enjoyable, before we ruin the experience with gear grind... O.o

Qarn is actually a decent example. Not only with those block enemies but also gathering up the masks to unlock additional rooms/boss room. 1000 maws has that a little bit too since you have to gather up the orbs to unlock mini bosses. It'd be nice to have more dungeons include that exploring aspect, have multiple paths with stuff hidden around to unlock other paths instead of just linear boss to boss to boss. Almost every dungeon in FF games has some puzzle involved.

Despite other gameplay mistakes, dungeon design and personality in WoW is really good. Say what you want about the game/community/etc itself, but at least look how the dungeons flow.

Bosses are fine as is if anything they’ve improved, just the bleek and nothingness inbetween is borderline boring. Holminister Switch is the best example of Good bosses terrible build up I don’t recall ever encountering such a bare bones amount of trash than this

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Qarn is actually a decent example. Not only with those block enemies but also gathering up the masks to unlock additional rooms/boss room. 1000 maws has that a little bit too since you have to gather up the orbs to unlock mini bosses. It'd be nice to have more dungeons include that exploring aspect, have multiple paths with stuff hidden around to unlock other paths instead of just linear boss to boss to boss. Almost every dungeon in FF games has some puzzle involved.

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A constant counterargument is that a puzzle dungeon looses its charm fast especially with how roulettes work. They can work if it isn’t required like have it drop treasure instead of making it a requirement to proceed. It can work but they never attempted with bosses and music taking in the spotlight. Even raids have been reduced to just be boss how soon will this happen to dungeons?

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Originally Posted by Jirah

A constant counterargument is that a puzzle dungeon looses its charm fast especially with how roulettes work. They can work if it isn’t required like have it drop treasure instead of making it a requirement to proceed. It can work but they never attempted with bosses and music taking in the spotlight. Even raids have been reduced to just be boss how soon will this happen to dungeons?

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I don't think it would matter so long as they remained in that 15-20 min range. Obviously no one is going to want to mess around in a leveling roulette for 45 mins completing puzzles, but if it's a thoughtful enough design it shouldn't be an issue. Hell even something like what they do with treasure maps, could have doors that open up a random path so it's not the same pull every single time you run a dungeon. I'm still waiting to see 8 man dungeons where the group can split off and clear different areas before meeting up for a final boss.

There's a lot they could do honestly.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

I don't think it would matter so long as they remained in that 15-20 min range. Obviously no one is going to want to mess around in a leveling roulette for 45 mins completing puzzles, but if it's a thoughtful enough design it shouldn't be an issue. Hell even something like what they do with treasure maps, could have doors that open up a random path so it's not the same pull every single time you run a dungeon. I'm still waiting to see 8 man dungeons where the group can split off and clear different areas before meeting up for a final boss.

There's a lot they could do honestly.

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But why have they not done anything interesting with it? The 80s play the same as the 70s which plays the same as the 60s which 50s played abit different like Wanderers palace

Listen, if you make it optional corridors, people will straight up ignore everything but the most optimal route. Because people don't want puzzle dungeons, which are novel the first time and then annoying after. They want to get done with the dungeon.

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Originally Posted by AnakhaSilver

Listen, if you make it optional corridors, people will straight up ignore everything but the most optimal route. Because people don't want puzzle dungeons, which are novel the first time and then annoying after. They want to get done with the dungeon.

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So the point of dungeons is filler? Why even play a game where the majority of its content is to “get done with it”

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Originally Posted by Jirah

So the point of dungeons is filler? Why even play a game where the majority of its content is to “get done with it”

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Skinner box.

Partly true. But also, the whole point of, "Ok, I enjoyed this once, maybe a few times already, now I'm just trying to grind for levels, the novelty has worn off, this is just a chore now."

Novelty is great. When it's novel. But eventually, the novelty wears off. And this is an MMORPG. Some amount of grinding is necessary, for whatever your goal. Given the option of making that grind be either a chore or a breeze, bit of a no-brainer what most would pick.

Part of the reason why full clears are no longer a thing is because people used to farm early sections of dungeons for experience repeatedly and ignore the rest of it. To fix this, they concentrated the experience into bosses and since then, people have stopped full clearing because neither the loot nor the mobs were worth it. The Aurum Vale was subject to this and some people still do it with Doma Castle once in a while.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Obviously no one is going to want to mess around in a leveling roulette for 45 mins completing puzzles,....

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The main cause for many game design problems these days is people wanting to play an MMO without actually playing an MMO. Whining about this and that taking 5 minutes later. Honestly, if you log on and queue up for a roulette despite only having like 20 minutes of time, that's your personal problem ^^

If I'm remembering correctly, someone asked about this during one of recent Fanfests' Q&A.
They said that, while they would like to make more interesting dungeons, dungeons are where they send new battle-design devs to learn the ropes before sending them off to other battles, like raids and trials.

Yeah puzzles can get annoying, but it's still possible to do things differently to breath some life into the dungeons. Qarn is a great example. It has personality! And bonus points for FFXII nostalgia. Bardam's Mettle 2nd boss is another great example. It's still a boss on the corridor chain, but far from the traditional tank-n-spank. It's fun! 2.0 dungeons seemed to have more environmental interaction boss fights that were challenging and fun. Aurum Vale and picking up the item to drop debuff stacks. Hiding behind statues to drop tethers. Interact with lanterns to stop the AOE. Load up the rockets to pummel the boss. Drag the mobs beneath the spike ball to damage and debuff. Maybe I'm wrong here, but newer stuff seems like a lot of tank-n-spank with a lot of dodge and stack mechanics. The most interesting thing I can think of off the top of my head is the tightrope part of a final boss in 5.0 stuff (don't wanna drop any spoilers).

I know some people think puzzles and boss fights with gimmicks are annoying, but I think they're more fun than "burn it all as fast as humanly possible." I'm always sad when older content becomes so easy that you can burn through every mechanic. Behemoth in CT for example. It's a joke now. New players aren't getting the full experience of that content unless they queue with ONLY other newbies. It also makes me sad for the developers who spent so much time designing the encounters. It's fine if older content gets easier to clear over time, but like.....so much so that core mechanics are skippable or ignorable altogether?

I am bummed that current dungeon mobs are just zerg and AOE. It's so boring and brainless. It'd be more interesting if there were more enemy types that had burn priority. So much so that killing that one mob in the pack is more important than AOEing the group all at once. Bees with Final Sting comes to mind, but that's pretty tired by now. Even swapping packs of mobs out for single, strong enemies would be a nice change now and then.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

3-8 trash mobs- - - Boss - - - 3-8 trash mobs- - - - Boss - - - 3-8 trash mobs- - - Boss

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Shadowbringers Dungeon design in a nutshell
4 Trash pulls, then a Boss, repeated 3 times. No exceptions.

Trashmobs are more damage sponges than anything, and the bosses all have pretty much just 3 attacks that they just repeat in order.

Nobody likes Toto-rak, but it is one of the few dungeons in the game with more than one path...

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Qarn is actually a decent example. Not only with those block enemies but also gathering up the masks to unlock additional rooms/boss room.

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Qarn is a great example of why we don't have more interesting dungeons.

Once people figured out it's faster to skip the two groups guarding tablets and just deal with the one group of extra ghosts at the end, a lot of people stopped taking the time to pick up tablets.

I've yet to play any MMO that the dungeons weren't linear paths to the bosses. Yeah, sometimes they come up with something a little different. I remember WoW having the dungeon that was like an arena and you could end up with different bosses each time you ran it. Except I believe the final boss was always the same. But overall they're pretty much the same. One idea I think would be doable would be to have a chance for an NPC to appear who assists the boss in some way. Maybe provides some healing or shielding for the boss. Nothing too extreme but enough to require some extra effort. This would grant an extra piece of loot and/or exp.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Qarn is a great example of why we don't have more interesting dungeons.

Once people figured out it's faster to skip the two groups guarding tablets and just deal with the one group of extra ghosts at the end, a lot of people stopped taking the time to pick up tablets.

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Even as early as Sastasha.
All those rooms full of pirates doing stuff and the bonus treasure you get for beating them and no one does them because its quicker to ignore them and the reward for doing them isn't really worth it.
The room where the enemy are fighting each other is pretty fun though. >w>

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Originally Posted by Jirah

A example of the worst is Sohm Al (Hard Mode) where I did the whole thing half asleep. I actually crashed mid fight and was still alive made me feel kinda pointless. All the dungeons getting easier doesn’t help much either

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I feel you on that, i LOVE skalla but its so dam easy, i actually fell asleep during it for a few min, but we still made it fine with no one dead and i got 3 mvp... oh and i was the tank xD

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Originally Posted by Jirah

3-8 trash mobs- - - Boss - - - 3-8 trash mobs- - - - Boss - - - 3-8 trash mobs- - - Boss

Very very few dungeons differ from this formula, Bosses are completely fine in design difficulty and execution the trash between is so boring and monotonous for many dungeons. Their are some that follow the exact formula but with a twist like like hazards unexpected tank buster moves (Final sting) or debuffs or just massive aoes but so far that’s been more rare than I like it to be

Aurum Vale is the gold standard imo, it’s difficulty with the trash is suberp and bosses really make all parties focus not just the Healer.

A example of the worst is Sohm Al (Hard Mode) where I did the whole thing half asleep. I actually crashed mid fight and was still alive made me feel kinda pointless. All the dungeons getting easier doesn’t help much either

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nothing they can do will, in reality make dungeon crawling anything more than what it currently is. Take your gold standard dungeon. It, as far as my experience goes, is the dungeon I see the most people just up and leave right at the start. They zone in, go, "ah hell no" and zone out. Why? because people who run the DF's are in spam mode, skinner box reward hunting and deviating from what's fastest and easiest is a no no. It's simply the nature of MMO gaming, because you can and often do run the same stuff over and over and over that, being novel and unique is GREAT the first time, it gets old the 5th time, and people start avoiding it around the 10th time. That said, the devs may try and make a few instances different enough to spice things up, but it isn't worth the effort to do it more often than that for content that essentially becomes grinding fodder. Better, IMO, that time spend on making the fights the matter, the boss fights, primals, raides, 24 mans ect interesting and leave the trash to being trash. YMMV of course.

The problem is that they are brain-dead easy. There needs to be some content that is between the current dungeon difficulty and extreme difficulty.
I am not a fan of the WoW mythic speed run aspect but the difficult increase is something I really like.

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Originally Posted by AnakhaSilver

Listen, if you make it optional corridors, people will straight up ignore everything but the most optimal route. Because people don't want puzzle dungeons, which are novel the first time and then annoying after. They want to get done with the dungeon.

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Unless you make it worth it to go through those corridors by placing chests with gear, optional bosses, exp side mission like WoW etc...

FFxvi is better than BFA and all, but WOW has a much, much better dungeon design than XIV. XIV's dungeons feel like reskins of each other to me at least