ARR Dungeon Changes

I love them. I love love love them.

Think my favorite so far is Copper Bell Mines, though some of the aggro pathing is still wonky. The new boss fights are great.

Anyone else have some favorite changes?

The good: New Toto Rak is pretty.
The not so good: New Toto Rak is easier/has fewer mechanics than Sastasha.

I hate them all!!! Back in my day you had to....jk I like the new designs.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

The good: New Toto Rak is pretty.
The not so good: New Toto Rak is easier/has fewer mechanics than Sastasha.

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Rouletting into there and the tank pulls only the two puddings in that one big room is suffering. Pure fricken suffering.

What I appreciated is that the fights in Copperbell Mines were unique. Using a bomb to destroy the blob or lots of adds as a boss. It's the sort of idea we could have more of to make dungeons more interesting. The changes do give new players a sense of modern dungeon design though. Before this there was a really big difference between what we play in ARR and what we play in EW.

From what I've seen so far, I have mixed opinions, though it's probably a positive change overall and they were not lazy about it at least. I'm sad Stone Vigil's cannons were taken away, and the randomly wandering tornado was replaced with scripted tornados, but it's still an okay fight and that boss room now has a pretty spectacular view of the outdoors. Similarly, the cannons in the Livia fight in Castrum Meridianum are now gone, and it's now just "dodge the AoEs," but at least they are cool and very fancy AoEs. It's pretty hectic, actually -- I think it would be a real challenge for new players.

On that note, what they did with Castrum, Praetorium, and Ultima Weapon is great. It feels a lot better to run with 4 players instead of 8, and actually playing it like a dungeon instead of just running past everything and skipping whole areas. The greatest thing of all is that now newbies will actually have a decent ARR climax experience, even if it's many years too late.

I recently ran the new Toto-Rak with some friends who just started playing, and I'm honestly surprised they didn't seem to do anything about the longer cutscene before the final boss. I didn't test it, but it seems like you can still run right into the room while a new player is in a cutscene?? I feel like they really should have addressed this somehow, though I'm not sure what the solution should be.

The gross over-simplification of legacy content honestly worries me. When you look at the growing trend of job simplification, It's indicative of a desire to dumb down the game across the board to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I saw the same thing with happen with WoW and it pisses me off that they aren't learning from other's mistakes.

i really enjoy the 2.0 story dungeon reworks, only real complaints i have with it is

1.why did they rework every story dungeon and yet sastasha is the same old garbage its always been
2.why did they rework a small part of the 2nd area in dzemael and not change anything else about that dungeon and why didnt the non story dungeons get reworked halatali could sure use it

Castrum Meridianum is great. Nothing but praise for that rework.

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

The gross over-simplification of legacy content honestly worries me. When you look at the growing trend of job simplification, It's indicative of a desire to dumb down the game across the board to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I saw the same thing with happen with WoW and it pisses me off that they aren't learning from other's mistakes.

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In most cases, simplification is good. It doesn't make things easier, it makes them simpler and less convoluted.
Some people like convoluted gameplay, but they are clearly the minority. Maybe you will get "ARR/HW classic" at some point ;)
A lot of the same things they changed really aged poorly...

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

The gross over-simplification of legacy content honestly worries me. When you look at the growing trend of job simplification, It's indicative of a desire to dumb down the game across the board to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I saw the same thing with happen with WoW and it pisses me off that they aren't learning from other's mistakes.

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I don't think its appealing to the lowest common denominator

I have met very few people that say they want easy mode, yet I have met hundreds of people that get pissy when there is a bit of adversity because someone else isn't on their level
Thats who these changes are trying to appease.

does the ultima fight count?
Seeing people panicking in what seems to be no way to dodge a mechanic was hilarious xD

ehn.

the dungeons were built around classes and abilities from 2.0 and ARR took far, far longer than it did now. it's also very very easy to overgear and overlevel yourself now. compared to some job quests (looking at you, arcanist) the dungeons were already a breeze. there were very few things in them that could kill you already. back in arr when wars had to steal flash from palis and healers needed to steal swiftcast from black mages, sure. but now it's like... it was already really hard to die in them, y'know?

i see no issue with any of the changes as the HW dungeons ramp up the difficulty nicely. hell, even keeper of the lake is more than enough of a slap to the face to wake up the beginners.

i'm fine with the changes.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

In most cases, simplification is good. It doesn't make things easier, it makes them simpler and less convoluted.
Some people like convoluted gameplay, but they are clearly the minority. Maybe you will get "ARR/HW classic" at some point ;)
A lot of the same things they changed really aged poorly...

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I dunno, I could have done with a refresh of Toto Rak that didn't turn it into.... three completely unthreatening health pinata trash packs plus a boring, no mechanics boss three times in a row. Nobody is going to miss the slowing floor sludge, but getting rid of the photocells, the poison bombs, and the web walls that sucked you in completely deleted all sense of flavor from that place. It was like grouping up to fight level 5 field mobs.

I haven't done all of the ARR dungeons since the changes, but what I've seen changed has been pretty decent where there were actual major changes.

Sastasha, I think they could've done a little more, maybe move the note more onto the path and not keep it in that side room. But it's not like the dungeon had any major issues to begin with so it being unchanged isn't really a problem.

Copperbell, the only problem the dungeon really had was the wait time in the bosses, that's been removed which was very nice and the bosses have been given more "normal" mechanics.

Toto-Rak, they scrapped over half of the dungeon, but somehow made it feel bigger than before. And by removing the photocells and Leaden, it's infinitely smoother to go through.

Stone Vigil, removing the cannons from the second boss is nice since you could end up with one of it's typhoons sitting on top of a cannon making it tricky to shoot it.

Dzemael Darkhold, the second part of the dungeon got a nice overhaul, removing the section at the bottom of the cliff where nobody willingly went to anyways. And filling in some gaps in the path.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I dunno, I could have done with a refresh of Toto Rak that didn't turn it into.... three completely unthreatening health pinata trash packs plus a boring, no mechanics boss three times in a row. Nobody is going to miss the slowing floor sludge, but getting rid of the photocells, the poison bombs, and the web walls that sucked you in completely deleted all sense of flavor from that place. It was like grouping up to fight level 5 field mobs.

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The last boss definitely has a mechanic, put the mini bosses are pointless. much like in Tam Tara

The sludge before was why it was the worst dungeon, the overall boringness of it now keeps it the worst. You just wont groan as loudly when you get it

Haukke and Copperbell are the winners of the revamp.
Not requiring return plus the charm > petrify on last boss is neat and at least feels bad to fail even if its still inconsequential
And the copperbell bosses were awful. The slime had a good idea executed badly but the other two were pure trash

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Originally Posted by Broken_Wind

The last boss definitely has a mechanic, put the mini bosses are pointless. much like in Tam Tara

The sludge before was why it was the worst dungeon, the overall boringness of it now keeps it the worst. You just wont groan as loudly when you get it

Haukke and Copperbell are the winners of the revamp.
Not requiring return plus the charm > petrify on last boss is neat and at least feels bad to fail even if its still inconsequential
And the copperbell bosses were awful. The slime had a good idea executed badly but the other two were pure trash

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the first boss of copperbell is just me spamming the "/doze motion" emote 500 times

2nd boss was pulling teeth as i would scream myself hoarse telling people to stop attacking the frickin' bomb.

the 3rd boss was annoying not because people sometimes didn't know just to burn the main boss but because even old tanks would never pull the boss away from the rocky spot and would make poor monks and dragoons jump and hop over rough terrain to do their positonals.

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

The gross over-simplification of legacy content honestly worries me. When you look at the growing trend of job simplification, It's indicative of a desire to dumb down the game across the board to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I saw the same thing with happen with WoW and it pisses me off that they aren't learning from other's mistakes.

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Remember when the game was hard and taught people how to play the game by having punching bags with mechanics you could ignore completely.

All reworked bosses have now mechanics every players has to pay attention.

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Originally Posted by Scaramouche

Remember when the game was hard and taught people how to play the game by having punching bags with mechanics you could ignore completely.

All reworked bosses have now mechanics every players has to pay attention.

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I wouldnt be surprised if the strat for Copperbell becomes ignore mechanics and burn bosses. It doesnt really hurt much to fail them

Honestly, I would even dare saying it: they should rework Bahamut raids as well.

Other than the obvious lighting, removal of photocell, omegalul wallpulls and notable less threatening mobs, the other thing that I noticed from Toto-Rak change is how they turn bosses' poison debuff into an uncleansable version. Is this a sign they're planning to remove Healers' Esuna? :p

I don’t view these changes as actions that SE took to appeal to lower denominators player base, but rather changes that are very necessary to make new low level trust system to work. Some of the old mechanics may not be suitable for trusts. Are these changes good? I don’t think so. These changes took away the unique feeling from each dungeon and made them feel like generic pull-everything-to-boss dungeon. I just wish trust system is never implemented. It’s a MMORPG game, interacting with other people is essential in this genre. Yoshi-p is unfortunately shifting their focus to RPGMMO. I wish all these efforts on low level stuff can be put into making current systems better, or making Viera’s hairstyle.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Other than the obvious lighting, removal of photocell, omegalul wallpulls and notable less threatening mobs, the other thing that I noticed from Toto-Rak change is how they turn bosses' poison debuff into an uncleansable version. Is this a sign they're planning to remove Healers' Esuna? :p

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If anything, it was probably done to stop people from spamming Esuna on those fights as the way they worked was that they would reapply it if their main target didn't have poison up. Some healers and the Trusts going "Oh hey, tank has poison. Gotta cast Esuna. Oh hey, tank has poison again. Gotta cast Esuna. Oh hey, tank has poison again, Gotta cast Esuna."

They're revising history!

Soon nobody will remember that dungeons had actual mechanics :3

Please enjoy 3 packs and a wall - repeat 3 times until last boss and dungeon is done.

Being sassy aside tho, I like them going back and bringing things up to par!

I just wish we'd also get enhanced gameplay/mechanics and not just... You know, removing stuffs!

But it's fine and the MSQs are alot better tbh. Still won't q for em tho :D

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Originally Posted by Garnix

In most cases, simplification is good. It doesn't make things easier, it makes them simpler and less convoluted.
Some people like convoluted gameplay, but they are clearly the minority. Maybe you will get "ARR/HW classic" at some point ;)
A lot of the same things they changed really aged poorly...

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Tell that to WoW that has nothing left but a giant echo chamber.

I like how they look. But I'm not so happy about losing all the corridors in Totorak for example or some nerfs I've seen in Stone Vigil. For the new player they'll be okay. Truth is I'm not really a fan of the later game dungeon design and I feel like they brought that into ARR so if anything they feel more homogenized.

Either way though they do look better so theres pros and cons.

From what I've seen, I think the changes are far on the positive side of the spectrum. Removing some of the gimmicks and adding actual mechanics keeps things engaging and the removal of some cutscenes helps take the edge of the MSQ tedium. All in all I'm very happy for the changes they've made.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Honestly, I would even dare saying it: they should rework Bahamut raids as well.

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Might as well if homogenization is the plan. Just make T3 a solo instance, tone down the other raids, add them all to the raid roulette, and add savage versions for the first and third tiers.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Honestly, I would even dare saying it: they should rework Bahamut raids as well.

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only if they get added to the raid roulette cause right now they are useless

Let's go ahead an tone down ultimates and make a roulette for them as well.

While we are at it, lets go ahead and provide loot to everyone just for attempting any piece of content.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Let's go ahead an tone down ultimates and make a roulette for them as well.

While we are at it, lets go ahead and provide loot to everyone just for attempting any piece of content.

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sounds good to me

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

What I appreciated is that the fights in Copperbell Mines were unique. Using a bomb to destroy the blob or lots of adds as a boss. It's the sort of idea we could have more of to make dungeons more interesting. The changes do give new players a sense of modern dungeon design though. Before this there was a really big difference between what we play in ARR and what we play in EW.

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that's a very rose-tinted glasses view of the fight. you know what i remember of it? falling asleep as a caster dps because i have literally nothing to do when the non-caster dps kills the add that needs to be killed before i can even finish a cast bar.

On one hand, I actually love that they at least have multiple mechanics now, and the addition of tankbuster/stack markers is a nice touch for people to learn early on what they mean. I really hope they eventually expand similar updates throughout all the ARR and HW dungeons, not just the MSQ ones. Maybe even alliance raids (I'm looking at you, purple stack marker in WoD that doesn't look like a stack marker)

On the other hand, as tedious as most of the low level dungeons were, I did like how they had unique gimmicks attached to them, like the bomb mechanic in Copperbell, or the cannons in Stone Vigil/against Livia - sure, they were tedious because you only needed 1-2 people and everyone else could alt+tab in the meantime, but that's only because they were badly implemented, not because the idea itself was flawed. I don't know, I kinda liked needing to interact with our surroundings to defeat the bosses, rather than just....beating them down with brute force like piñatas while dancing through aoes. And I'm admittedly concerned they may only double down on these kind of 'babyproofing' changes.

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Originally Posted by Allegor

On one hand, I actually love that they at least have multiple mechanics now, and the addition of tankbuster/stack markers is a nice touch for people to learn early on what they mean. I really hope they eventually expand similar updates throughout all the ARR and HW dungeons, not just the MSQ ones. Maybe even alliance raids (I'm looking at you, purple stack marker in WoD that doesn't look like a stack marker)

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they actually did change that one

I think it was entirely unnecessary to turn totorak into a hallway, but seeing them make unique bosses for these instances is pretty cool.

Mixed on it.

I've only done a couple of them so far but for the two I have done:

Copperbell - I'm someone who actually appreciated the concepts behind all 3 bosses. I think they could have done some interesting things had they continued with some of these ideas, or at least executed what they had here better. But the way the fights were actually done was 100% coma inducing, and they also felt very out of step with a lot of the fights even a little bit later in the game. Either the fights needed to live up to their unique mechanics or they needed to be redone completely, so the latter made more sense. I'll miss the old ones but really only in a sort of rose tinted glasses, what could have been, way.

Toto Rak - This one really feels off to me now. I get that some people didn't like the twisty, windy alternate paths and what have you, but I actually enjoyed it. Even if you straight lined it, it felt more like a real old school RPG dungeon to me, and there were those couple of switch backs in the pathway that new players always fell for.. and that always made me smile. Overall design aside, what I really miss the most, though, is just how dank, dark and dangerous it used to feel. It used to be the sort of place you would only go to if you absolutely had to but now with the bright sunlit clearings and greenery it feels more like somewhere you'd go on a picnic. I can understand the new dungeon design but the new lighting and visuals completely killed the mood and vibe it had before.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

I've only done a couple of them so far but for the two I have done:

Copperbell - I'm someone who actually appreciated the concepts behind all 3 bosses. I think they could have done some interesting things had they continued with some of these ideas, or at least executed what they had here better. But the way the fights were actually done was 100% coma inducing, and they also felt very out of step with a lot of the fights even a little bit later in the game. Either the fights needed to live up to their unique mechanics or they needed to be redone completely, so the latter made more sense. I'll miss the old ones but really only in a sort of rose tinted glasses, what could have been, way.

Toto Rak - This one really feels off to me now. I get that some people didn't like the twisty, windy alternate paths and what have you, but I actually enjoyed it. Even if you straight lined it, it felt more like a real old school RPG dungeon to me, and there were those couple of switch backs in the pathway that new players always fell for.. and that always made me smile. Overall design aside, what I really miss the most, though, is just how dank, dark and dangerous it used to feel. It used to be the sort of place you would only go to if you absolutely had to but now with the bright sunlit clearings and greenery it feels more like somewhere you'd go on a picnic. I can understand the new dungeon design but the new lighting and visuals completely killed the mood and vibe it had before.

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The funny thing with Toto Rak is I think the alternative path through the first section was actually a tiny bit faster, but no one ever took it.
My dream would be some non linear dungeons, maybe even dungeons where objective and boss locations change like EQ's LDoN

Im curious about what you liked about the first Copperbell boss though. It was just a bunch of regular mobs. They use this occasionally still, but dont think normal enemy gauntlet works wells for a boss fight
Third fight mechanics, assuming at some point you had to kill the adds...I just dont find it that memorable or interesting

I agree on second boss, interesting idea but bad execution. The hard mode bomb fight fares better

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Originally Posted by Broken_Wind

Im curious about what you liked about the first Copperbell boss though. It was just a bunch of regular mobs. They use this occasionally still, but dont think normal enemy gauntlet works wells for a boss fight
Third fight mechanics, assuming at some point you had to kill the adds...I just dont find it that memorable or interesting

I agree on second boss, interesting idea but bad execution. The hard mode bomb fight fares better

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I suppose I just like the idea of controlled chaos style add fights. They have dipped into the idea here and there so it's not a completely foreign idea but it's just something different than the usual One Big Dude Who Hits Hard. Maybe they could have actually had a pseudo enrage style mechanic where if you let too many Spriggans survive the bomb enemies would explode faster or something. I don't have any specific ideas but I like the idea of a horde mode style encounter.

I keep hoping to get one of the redone instances, but instead I've had the Tower of Zot four times this week. Damnit RNGsus, appease my curiosity!

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

Might as well if homogenization is the plan. Just make T3 a solo instance, tone down the other raids, add them all to the raid roulette, and add savage versions for the first and third tiers.

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Yes that's pretty much what I have in mind.
Tone them all down to make a 'Normal' mode.
Rename the current ones as 'Savage'.
Maybe adjust some of the markers. Remove some trash here and there.
For T6-T9, keep the savage version for Savage, ditch the current 'normal' mode.
Include the new Normal mode in the raid roulette.

Veteran players are not doing those raids anymore (unless they have to quickly solo one for Wondrous Trails or a piece of glam).
Most newcomers just ask for someone to carry them through it which is not fun for anyone.
So it would be a gain for everybody. Would like to fight Bahamut occasionally on roulettes.