Can we get challenging 4-man content?

So, there's that... Sometimes I feel that the dungeon aspect of the game is poorly explored. And while I love to do 8-man content with my FC, they're not a hardcore PVE, so our savage fights only happens once a week.

It would be amazing if we could have a chance for some kind of Dungeon Savage mode, or something that would offer a challenge for small parties, since it's way easier to fix people for that outside of your main raiding days.

Not asking for a copy of the Mythic+ system in World of Warcraft, but at this rate I'd take anything, since there is zero incentive to run dungeons outside of the 2 daily roulettes for the tomestones. Can't even say "for the fun of it", because it's so brain-dead at some point, that it's hard to see any actual challenge to be fun.

Have you tried doing rathalos Ex synced?

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Originally Posted by Raikai

So, there's that... Sometimes I feel that the dungeon aspect of the game is poorly explored. And while I love to do 8-man content with my FC, they're not a hardcore PVE, so our savage fights only happens once a week.

It would be amazing if we could have a chance for some kind of Dungeon Savage mode, or something that would offer a challenge for small parties, since it's way easier to fix people for that outside of your main raiding days.

Not asking for a copy of the Mythic+ system in World of Warcraft, but at this rate I'd take anything, since there is zero incentive to run dungeons outside of the 2 daily roulettes for the tomestones. Can't even say "for the fun of it", because it's so brain-dead at some point, that it's hard to see any actual challenge to be fun.

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Can't find the interview but, Yoshi P said he wants to do harder 4 man content, its something hes looking into, so its a possibility for Endwalker!

The rathalos ex is a 4 man raid that's pretty challenging. Plus you can get a cool mount as well.

Have you tried upper level potd and hoh? Floors 150+ / 70+ are a ton of fun if you're working with a skilled team over discord. The RNG adds a reactive element that's notably absent from most of this game. Only downside is that it takes a few hours grinding through lower floors to get to the exciting parts.

If you care about the current relic then potd is helpful there, too. Roughly 8 Timeworn Artifacts going from 51-200.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

Can't find the interview but, Yoshi P said he wants to do harder 4 man content, its something hes looking into, so its a possibility for Endwalker!

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This is great news.

I agree with the OP, although I'm not really looking for savage-level difficulty. It feels right now that outside the Bozja "dungeons" only Extreme trials appeal to what's between casual and hardcore content so I'd rather have more on that level.

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Originally Posted by Baxcel

Have you tried doing rathalos Ex synced?

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assuming he means dungeons and not trial that are Collab's.

I would like to see harder dungeons, but I want to keep them puggable.

I'm definitely for it.

We got Duels for 1v1, why not 4 players hard dungeons?

As someone who really enjoys M+ in WoW, I would love to see some harder 4-man content—maybe something like dungeon EX or S could be cool. (I don't think that the timed aspect of M+ would work well in FF14 at all.)

One real difficultly is where it would fit in FF14's gearing scheme, which is very tight and well defined. EX/S dungeons would have to compete with other gear sources rather than replace them or the entire gearing map would need to be reworked, and both of those are really big challenges. They're even bigger challenges if, like M+ in WoW, the harder content was scalable (which would be cool).

tldr Sign me up for harder dungeon/4-man content, but recognize the really difficult design challenges associated with that content in FF14

The problem with 4 man VS 8, is a death is that much more punishing.

To put it on the same level of savage, would actually make it more difficult.

Rathalos and the Deep Dungeons are the obvious ones but I'd love to see more stuff like them.
Memoria Misery EX was an awful experience compared to Rathalos EX, so I really hope they go back to that for the 'extra' EX trial in Endwalker.
We lost a DD in ShB so I hope they bring back a DD in Endwalker. I wouldn't mind if it was a little more limited in scope in exchange for a bigger challenge either.

Mythic + content please.

Yeah, Rathalos... I mean 4-mans more more like the challenge in the whole package that is often displayed in dungeons: trash and boss. (I wish exploration in dungeons were less linear tho, but that's another subject)

Deep dungeons are basically the only saving grace for 4 people, I'll admit that but at the same time, I'm kind of sick of running them because they are very repetitive, and mostly important, at least to my experience trying to get both FC and non FC people to run them, the nature of deep dungeons advanced floors require more like a static group of people (to progress to the end in different sessions), rather than an impromptu group of people interested in running something short/medium, but challenging.

They are an option, of course. I'm sick of both PotD and HoH, tho, but I'm pretty sure if ShB had a deep dungeon, it would probably satisfy at least some of my immediate needs. Another reason is that in PotD and HoH you play under level 80, and for some jobs it's quite a miserable experience.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The problem with 4 man VS 8, is a death is that much more punishing.

To put it on the same level of savage, would actually make it more difficult.

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I wouldn't mind the challenge, to be honest. If you're playing with an organized group, coul still bring a SMN or RDM as a dpser for the extra rez.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The problem with 4 man VS 8, is a death is that much more punishing.

To put it on the same level of savage, would actually make it more difficult.

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Isn't that the fun part?

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

Isn't that the fun part?

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Depends on your point of view. If it pushes people to want only casters with the rez ability, then that makes it less fun for melee players.

If it's too forgiving where deaths don't really matter, then in that case, raise utility is king.

If deaths do matter, then you basically have to play perfect, since a death with only 4 players drops your overall dps a lot more than with 8.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Depends on your point of view. If it pushes people to want only casters with the rez ability, then that makes it less fun for melee players.

If it's too forgiving where deaths don't really matter, then in that case, raise utility is king.

If deaths do matter, then you basically have to play perfect, since a death with only 4 players drops your overall dps a lot more than with 8.

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Thats fine imo either way, being careful isn;t the worst and if RDM and SMN become too domanant, people can make their own groups that are focused on that. a lot of people forget they don't have to follow what the masses do with group comps.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

Thats fine imo either way, being careful isn;t the worst and if RDM and SMN become too domanant, people can make their own groups that are focused on that. a lot of people forget they don't have to follow what the masses do with group comps.

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The problem is, if it's that way, the fights are too easy. That means you get no meaningful rewards.

They mentioned this is why they haven't done hard 4 man content in the past, it's much harder to balance.

I like 4 man content, but I just don't ever see it being on the same level as savage in terms of difficulty or reward.

All you have to look at is potd, where a death at a bad time in there can kill a week's worth of work.

It really sours the experience.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The problem is, if it's that way, the fights are too easy. That means you get no meaningful rewards.

They mentioned this is why they haven't done hard 4 man content in the past, it's much harder to balance.

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I'm not denying that it would end up too easy, and that its hard to balance, but IF you wanna do it, there nothing forcing the general players to use a caster. In WoW, the place where this idea usually comes from its rather often even with higher mythic keys that people go on whats fun, over whats *optimal* and skill usually trumps whats optimal.

So while being hard to balance, they also have to account for player skill, and if there would be multiple lvls to it, everyone can stop at the lvl they feel comfortable with, thus putting more agency into the players hands. It would scale by X amount every tier you go up and when you reach your limit you know not to go past it.

They don't even have to create new instance for 4man. Just look no further than Guildhest. Copy, paste, adjust some values, add a little spice of life and congrats: you now have Guildhest Expert, your daily 4man challenge.

You can try those dungeons minimum item level, which can make them a lot harder. You will probably beat them but they will sometimes make you think and involve deaths because the enemy damage is higher.

You can try doing 8-person extreme trials as an undersized party of 4. Some of them can still be challenging with only 4 people, so it can still be something that you overcome together.

You can also try POTD from floor 101, HoH and Rathalos as others pointed out.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

You can try those dungeons minimum item level, which can make them a lot harder. You will probably beat them but they will sometimes make you think and involve deaths because the enemy damage is higher.

You can try doing 8-person extreme trials as an undersized party of 4. Some of them can still be challenging with only 4 people, so it can still be something that you overcome together.

You can also try POTD from floor 101, HoH and Rathalos as others pointed out.

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Those dungeons are still pretty easy, unless the party constantly fails in avoiding the AoEs.

The second suggestion... This one is pretty good, and might do as well to keep some busy time, but still it would be nice to have current content with proper rewards for the challenge.

This is for me personally, so won't really apply to everyone out there, but I've had my fair share of PotD and HoH runs already - because it was my go-to challenging 4-man conten... I can't really get myself to go through those floors again. :( Not that I find the challenge boring, but seeing the same thing over and over again gets old. Plus, not really a breaking point, but it adds: I really hate some pre-ShB job kits <cough> BLM <cough>.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

They don't even have to create new instance for 4man. Just look no further than Guildhest. Copy, paste, adjust some values, add a little spice of life and congrats: you now have Guildhest Expert, your daily 4man challenge.

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Hm! It would be nice if Guildhests got "revitalized" as a concept for 4-man challenging content. Though, I think just a copy paste would be a really low quality job. For that to be on par with their EX content, they would have to add new mechanics and whatnot... So why not to use the resources to just make brand new fights?

I wish. Too bad the casuals in this community will not let it happen

It's easy to say "I want more hard content to do" but few players participate solely because they enjoy the content. Long term participation tends to be motivated by rewards.

Would you maintain interest in the harder content if all you were earning was a handful of tomestones a week?

I do feel like harder content should be available for people that want it though, and that harder Dungeons are a good way to create accessibility to do it.

I would only do it if the loot was pretty enough, or worth my time. But lots would still do it.

Semi related, but unskippable cutscenes aside, I did like the "8-man dungeon" concept the MSQ tried doing and wish there were more dungeons like that, though it's highly unlikely at this point.

Now on topic, I'm up for hard mode dungeons, since we can all agree that aside from story purposes, they're really just there for glamour farming. That said, I'm vehemently against timers like WoW's M+, that's just inviting toxicity.

Without adding something like Pomanders/Mega-Potions or other gimmicks, any "extreme" or "savage" 4 man content just puts added difficulty on specifically the healer. Because if they die, in which case, RDM becomes a popular DPS choice because of Verraise. There's also a hard limit on how difficult or complex mechanics can be with only 2 dps 1 healer and 1 tank. Stack/spread/look away/move/don't move. Like what else can you really do? Since you only have 1 healer, unless you add temporary items or special actions, it puts extra stress on the healer more than the dps and tank.

I'd like Savage/Extreme dungeons.

Dungeons in XIV feel incredibly underutilized as they are. They're pretty, but that's about the extent of it for the most part. They tend to feel somewhat disjointed from the world, with bosses inside of them who hold little meaning most of the time (like the Lightwardens, who I had hoped to be more like characters in their own right than one-off encounters you smash through as if they were nothing). And they don't feel exciting to explore, since it's mostly a hallway > boss arena > hallway.

Holminster visually, for example, is interesting but it lacks the sort of atmosphere and stops feeling like a place the moment you realize you can't explore it at all.

Dungeons are very easy, which is why I'd like more challenging versions. Kind of weird when a WAR can solo a current end-cap dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Would you maintain interest in the harder content if all you were earning was a handful of tomestones a week?

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Works for me and anyone who does Frontline Roulette multiple times a day to keep it alive (and to assert dominance over another person).

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's easy to say "I want more hard content to do" but few players participate solely because they enjoy the content. Long term participation tends to be motivated by rewards.

Would you maintain interest in the harder content if all you were earning was a handful of tomestones a week?

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Yeah especially if it had a timer tied to it, I would play the crap out of that with friends to try and optimize the run.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It's easy to say "I want more hard content to do" but few players participate solely because they enjoy the content. Long term participation tends to be motivated by rewards.

Would you maintain interest in the harder content if all you were earning was a handful of tomestones a week?

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Admittedly, no.
I would enjoy the content and run it occasionally for enjoyment, but like any dungeon or raid after a few runs I'd mainly be doing it for the reward, and the game already showers us with tomestones.

Heck, I thoroughly enjoy the Unreal fights and I only get about 6 clears in on each.

Wouldn't mind an extreme/savage version of four man content. Have it grant a higher amount of tomestones than expert thus getting to finish that cap quicker in the week and could also offer an additional type of currency toward glam and other items that could perhaps be sold on the MB. I'm a little wary of it rewarding DoW/DoM combat gear though.. would just increase the ilvl bloat that much faster.