We need a new dungeon design team

Im pretty sure everyone is tired on doing the same dungeons over and over.. 4 packs of trash, boss.. etc. Im hoping the dungeons will be better in 8.0 but I highly doubt it. Its going to be the same just streamline..

Can we please do better??

Just so you're aware, they've hired lots and lots and lots of dungeon designers over the last few years. I was watching the constant job applications for it come and go. And they said that they wanted people who would design a dungeon just like the current ones, that lasts about 20 minutes, and has the same average difficulty and number of mechanics per boss fight.

The job application involved designing a dungeon battle and submitting it along with the application.

What I'm saying is that the design team has changed over time and the dungeon design is a decision from the top. They could almost certainly do it differently if they were asked to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

And they said that they wanted people who would design a dungeon just like the current ones, that lasts about 20 minutes, and has the same average difficulty and number of mechanics per boss fight.

---

There are 2 types of dungeon designers, the actual designers which those applications ask for, and the designers who set the standards. Guess which we want to have replaced.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Just so you're aware, they've hired lots and lots and lots of dungeon designers over the last few years. I was watching the constant job applications for it come and go. And they said that they wanted people who would design a dungeon just like the current ones, that lasts about 20 minutes, and has the same average difficulty and number of mechanics per boss fight.

The job application involved designing a dungeon battle and submitting it along with the application.

What I'm saying is that the design team has changed over time and the dungeon design is a decision from the top. They could almost certainly do it differently if they were asked to.

---

So, if they keep hiring so many, are they constantly leaving out of disgust after a few months or...?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valence

So, if they keep hiring so many, are they constantly leaving out of disgust after a few months or...?

---

They get hired
They make a dungeon
People dislike the dungeon
They get blamed, and fired

Repeat that cycle.

(actualy hope it isnt realy that bad, but i can imagine for a dev not liking it when you are blamed for something out of your control, so maybe they do leave instead)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Miguel85NYC

Im pretty sure everyone is tired on doing the same dungeons over and over.. 4 packs of trash, boss.. etc. Im hoping the dungeons will be better in 8.0 but I highly doubt it. Its going to be the same just streamline..

Can we please do better??

---

The design is that way because of how we the playerbase ran them.

Design dungeons with lots of side paths or multiple ways to reach the next point? We ignored the side paths, found which way was the quickest, and only ran that way.

Don't put the walls every 2 trash packs? We pulled all the way to the boss, reset the trash, and effectively skipped everything except the bosses. Then we doubled down and harassed people who weren't on board with that and actually wanted to play through the dungeon and see everything.

Note - when I say "we", I don't mean you and me personally. I mean us as the FFXIV playerbase in general. Point being - the design is what it is because of how we the community treated it. As it stands now, the current playerbase would likewise need to prove to the developers that we as a group actually want something different. And no, the minuscule few of us that post on a forum known for immaturity and a deluge of negativity isn't going to do that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Striker44

The design is that way because of how we the playerbase ran them.

---

The problem isnt wall to wall on itself, the problem is that its the same pattern over and over again, which is boring. Do something more original, maybe 4 bosses, or 2 with a few subbosses instead, maybe a single section with 6 packs. Maybe add synergies between enemies that make it very hard to wall to wall (some packs causing a vuln up to magic, while another pack does that to phys, and add 2 mobs that do tank busters of those styles).

In most dungeons the damage feels patheticly weak. You can wall to wall these at min ilvl on day 1. That just shouldnt be possible. Its not a problem to make a tank struggle a bit on these mobs. they have mitigations. And that late in the game, if as player you dont even know to use these, then you are just asking for it. We can even put a last resort in for this: The echo. Died once, weaken the enemies so it becomes better survivable again.

Only if doing it single player (duty support), then the current damage values can be fine. This is nearly always slower than what players do anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Striker44

Design dungeons with lots of side paths or multiple ways to reach the next point? We ignored the side paths, found which way was the quickest, and only ran that way.

---

People always want the most time efficient route, unless the rewards are significantly greater. And the sad thing is, while some chests might give a rare resource (which the ARR dungeons had a few times), once the dungeon becomes unsync farmable, this becomes trivial for those, causing value to plummet.

But why not introducing forced random paths? Sometimes its left side, sometimes right side. If it goes into a circle, it might still be the same packs, but it can give the feel of variety.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Striker44

Don't put the walls every 2 trash packs? We pulled all the way to the boss, reset the trash, and effectively skipped everything except the bosses. Then we doubled down and harassed people who weren't on board with that and actually wanted to play through the dungeon and see everything.

---

Except in a few dungeons where the packs are notoriously damaging. Want to stop wall to wall, make sure its barely survivable by most players. I still dont see a lot of tanks going for 6 ice sprites and the rest of the mobs.

Creativity and putting something down that players arent expecting, thats what makes a dungeon good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valence

So, if they keep hiring so many, are they constantly leaving out of disgust after a few months or...?

---

While it's possible, I believe the actual reason they have hired so many is because:

There is more battle content produced now than ever before. Despite everyone claiming otherwise.

Sidequest dungeon revamps. MSQ dungeon bosses. MSQ trials. Solo duty bosses. Deep dungeon bosses. Ultimates. Normal/Savage raids. Alliance raids. Hildibrand duties. Limited job duties. Variant, Criterion. Chaotic. Quantum. South Horn battles (each FATE/CE). Forked Tower. North Horn battles (FATEs/CEs). North Horn raid. Arguably Cosmic's FATEs/events.

Dungeon design is the first step on the ladder; most likely they are meant to progress to designing raids and other fights.

have you ever thought what would happen if the dungeons would be more complex? Imagine just wanting to cap tomes and you end up in a party with 2-3 new players taking ages to make it to the end.

I'm fine with the current dungeon design as long as the bosses are fun (which isn't really the case for mistwake).

There are no dungeon designers anymore. Just boss designers.
There are no class designers anymore. Just boss designers.
There are no field content designers anymore. Just boss designers.
And despite all this the boss fights still really aren't much to write home about. Oh wow the boss raised his glowing right arm and then did a cleave on his right side? Crazy. Haven't seen that one before.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Striker44

Design dungeons with lots of side paths or multiple ways to reach the next point? We ignored the side paths, found which way was the quickest, and only ran that way.

Don't put the walls every 2 trash packs? We pulled all the way to the boss, reset the trash, and effectively skipped everything except the bosses. Then we doubled down and harassed people who weren't on board with that and actually wanted to play through the dungeon and see everything.

---

This is ignorance at best and revisionist history at worst. I can assure you that most people running those dungeons when they were relevant were NOT speedrunning them. When the leveling process took a lot longer it was common for tanks to stop and ask if anyone wanted to go for side chests. It was very common for people to get lost and take wrong turns. Doing full w2w pulls was NOT the standard for duty finder like it is today because those pulls required most of the party to be on their A game.

I think the fact that ARR through Stormblood had near perfect player retention while Dawntrail has lost FIFTY PERCENT of the playerbase is substantial enough evidence of what approach players REALLY prefer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

There are 2 types of dungeon designers, the actual designers which those applications ask for, and the designers who set the standards. Guess which we want to have replaced.

---

If it was my job to set dungeon standards, I would get 365 days holiday a year, because my job is done for the next 10 years. It is ultimately Yoshi-P and/or a round table decision, that thereafter became the "formula" and they probably don't even think about it. They admitted with Cosmic Exploration and Occult Crescent that they just create things based on precedent (the formula), without even so much as consulting Yoshi-P about it, because they are so busy and feel rushed. Their formula is like a way of meeting the deadlines.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DarkOmegaGod

There are no dungeon designers anymore. Just boss designers.

---

That's a good way to put it.

Quote:

---

most people running those dungeons when they were relevant were NOT speedrunning them.

---

Agreed but the context is a lot of people didn't speedrun them even after they were made easier. Because a lot of dungeon tanks were always casual, first-timer, roleplayer or low-confidence tanks with "tanxiety" etc.

However, in HW, I found it to be quite normal for tanks to enter ARR dungeons and just pull everything, wipe, then leave. I had it so many times that it was essentially them telling SE to let them do it with ease or they'll sabotage parties.

Quote:

---

Doing full w2w pulls was NOT the standard for duty finder like it is today because those pulls required most of the party to be on their A game.

---

I don't know if w2w is even the standard today. Maybe it is due to WAR/PLD's excessive heals. But at least up to the end of Shadowbringers there were still plenty of tanks doing single pulls despite the ease of healing the majority of big pulls.

The biggest challenge to dungeon design is not creativity but the trust system and making the dungeons as accessible as possible because they are apart of the MSQ.

If they were not trust comparable and not on the MSQ, there is a real possibility you would see some amazing dungeons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Striker44

The design is that way because of how we the playerbase ran them.

Design dungeons with lots of side paths or multiple ways to reach the next point? We ignored the side paths, found which way was the quickest, and only ran that way.

Don't put the walls every 2 trash packs? We pulled all the way to the boss, reset the trash, and effectively skipped everything except the bosses. Then we doubled down and harassed people who weren't on board with that and actually wanted to play through the dungeon and see everything.

Note - when I say "we", I don't mean you and me personally. I mean us as the FFXIV playerbase in general. Point being - the design is what it is because of how we the community treated it. As it stands now, the current playerbase would likewise need to prove to the developers that we as a group actually want something different. And no, the minuscule few of us that post on a forum known for immaturity and a deluge of negativity isn't going to do that.

---

.

Except they never designed dungeons like this. There were never multiple paths to the end. On occasion there was a side room in a leveling dungeon with an extra chest. This was fine in ARR when you didn’t get to the next MSQ just by completing the former. You had to fate grind or dungeon grind. So people would actually bother for a chance at an extra piece of gear that they’d keep using for another 5-10 levels. But that’s not the case anymore. There’s no reason for a chance at a slightly better upgrade that you’ll replace in 2-3 levels via MSQ coffers. This isn’t the playerbase’s fault. This is the direct result of changes that the devs made to their own game via streamlining the MSQ and MSQ experience gain. The playerbase didn’t change, the systems did.

Yea, people used to pull entire hallways in Wanderer’s Palace, pull the boss, and reset the mobs. The solution isn’t more walls, it’s making changes so the behavior isn’t desirable.

Why loot dungeon drops at max level when tomestones are what is desired? Sure, some players will min-max everything. By and large player behaviors are driven by game systems. Make nothing worthwhile within the dungeon except for the finish line and you encourage players to reach the end as quick as possible. They’ve continued this design by diverting dungeon mob experience to boss experience only. Why kill extra mobs when only bosses and the end of the dungeon give experience?

The current dungeon design is how it is because FFXIV developers saw a problem and instead of reiterating, spending time being creative, brainstorming, or taking risks they took the simplest, quickest, and easiest solution. Preach literally asked Yoshi-P about dungeon design prior to DT and Yoshi-P straight up said that they do dungeons as they are because they have a formula to follow and it’s easy to develop via that formula.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DarkOmegaGod

I think the fact that ARR through Stormblood had near perfect player retention while Dawntrail has lost FIFTY PERCENT of the playerbase is substantial enough evidence of what approach players REALLY prefer.

---

Players leave for multitudes of reasons, so a drop in player count is certainly not an evidence for your personal agenda... or mine, or anybody else's. In my case DT dungeon quality had 0 influence when I left last year.
BTW: I would have liked to tell SE the exact reasons why I left, but unfortunately the exit survey is utter BS.

They have the same problem as the video game industry at large: the delusion that reusing the same gameplay dressed with ever more sophisticated and "spectacular" visuals is enough to keep players engaged.

The new air force one is an almost ridiculously perfect example of this.

Innovating on gameplay is hard, so everypne goes for visuals instead.

Cs3 went wven further and completely standardized the gameplay. Don't want the hassle of thinking about the game will play all the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Striker44

The design is that way because of how we the playerbase ran them.

Design dungeons with lots of side paths or multiple ways to reach the next point? We ignored the side paths, found which way was the quickest, and only ran that way.

Don't put the walls every 2 trash packs? We pulled all the way to the boss, reset the trash, and effectively skipped everything except the bosses. Then we doubled down and harassed people who weren't on board with that and actually wanted to play through the dungeon and see everything.

Note - when I say "we", I don't mean you and me personally. I mean us as the FFXIV playerbase in general. Point being - the design is what it is because of how we the community treated it. As it stands now, the current playerbase would likewise need to prove to the developers that we as a group actually want something different. And no, the minuscule few of us that post on a forum known for immaturity and a deluge of negativity isn't going to do that.

---

You can't pin everything on the playerbase. It's part of a designer's job to create systems that take into account player behavior, and make choices to influence said behavior. If you add a specific reward for doing something in any game, that's already setting up player behavior and expectancy on its own, depending on how your reward is granted and for doing what.

I don't believe that was made as such because the playerbase tries optimizing everything. Any competent dev would know this already. That's a conscious choice on their end to roll with it because it makes the dungeons predictable, easy and following a clear formula, for which Yoshida has already expressed that it wouldn't change anyway precisely because it allows them to churn out dungeons fast. That's it, the decision is literally all about productivity over quality.

As for resetting the trash, that's something that can be considered as a clear oversight with systems that can prevent this to happen (walls before bosses, walls that don't close behind once the boss fight starts, impossibility to teleport to the boss checkpoint unless trash has been cleared, etc).

I would really like to see dungeons without trash mobs. Instead do mini bosses, or extra regular bosses.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliverQ

I would really like to see dungeons without trash mobs. Instead do mini bosses, or extra regular bosses.

---

just delete the dungeon category entirely at that point lol. Just title the category as boss rushes

I think in tandem with this they HAVE to get someone to do a better job with the NPC AI behavior for the trusts, because they seem to eventually dumb down more complex dungeons/mechanics because their current trusts are too stupid to manage those mechanics properly.

I mainly wish they'd make the trash pulls better, is the best we can do still auto attacking mobs with occasional circle or cone AoEs? Add some interrupts, or mini tankbusters, or mobs that don't follow normal aggro rules. Give us something, at least.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Router

I mainly wish they'd make the trash pulls better, is the best we can do still auto attacking mobs with occasional circle or cone AoEs? Add some interrupts, or mini tankbusters, or mobs that don't follow normal aggro rules. Give us something, at least.

---

That sort of reminds me, I miss the old Steps of Faith duty where different players could utilize stuff in the environment to do damage to the various dragons. Stuff like that worked into the design is more interesting to me than just AOE rotation over and over.

I keep hearing people talk about 'trash resetting on bosses' but I have trained trash to bosses where the boss is not gate kept behind a locked section straight into the boss fight so that it was a little more challenging, cause now it's not just a boss fight but there is some trash to also fight... are people getting to the boss and just suiciding to reset the trash and then using the teleport to get back, that seems so inefficient?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by s32ialx

I keep hearing people talk about 'trash resetting on bosses' but I have trained trash to bosses where the boss is not gate kept behind a locked section straight into the boss fight so that it was a little more challenging, cause now it's not just a boss fight but there is some trash to also fight... are people getting to the boss and just suiciding to reset the trash and then using the teleport to get back, that seems so inefficient?

---

I think they may be referring to old Cutter's Cry, where you could effectively skip 1/3 of the dungeon by jumping into the sand geysers fast enough.

Funny enough, the "new" dungeon design prevents that, but people treat it as some great offense. How dare Square-Enix make them play the dungeon as intended, lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by s32ialx

I keep hearing people talk about 'trash resetting on bosses' but I have trained trash to bosses where the boss is not gate kept behind a locked section straight into the boss fight so that it was a little more challenging, cause now it's not just a boss fight but there is some trash to also fight... are people getting to the boss and just suiciding to reset the trash and then using the teleport to get back, that seems so inefficient?

---

Yes that's what they do now that they added the teleport access to the boss as soon as you reach it. It's super fast, you sprint and pull everything, let the tank die in the boss room, they raise and teleport to the party starting the boss fight alone, takes barely 10s for the tank to do so.

10s vs fighting all the trash? Yeah, it's fast alright.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Striker44

The design is that way because of how we the playerbase ran them.

Design dungeons with lots of side paths or multiple ways to reach the next point? We ignored the side paths, found which way was the quickest, and only ran that way.

Don't put the walls every 2 trash packs? We pulled all the way to the boss, reset the trash, and effectively skipped everything except the bosses. Then we doubled down and harassed people who weren't on board with that and actually wanted to play through the dungeon and see everything.

Note - when I say "we", I don't mean you and me personally. I mean us as the FFXIV playerbase in general. Point being - the design is what it is because of how we the community treated it. As it stands now, the current playerbase would likewise need to prove to the developers that we as a group actually want something different. And no, the minuscule few of us that post on a forum known for immaturity and a deluge of negativity isn't going to do that.

---

Really dislike the way people keep blaming the playerbase for the dev's lack of imagination on how to come up with new innovative decisions, arent they paid to figure this kind of thing out?

I don't know if a new dungeon design team would actually change anything, since it seems to be a strategic direction more than what it is a designer direction. e.g., you can be the best dungeon designer humanly possible... But if the strategic direction is:
Must take 15-24 minutes for a typical group, depending on gear.
Must have 3 bosses, each with trash packs between.
Must have equal difficult to past dungeons.

Then you are already only giving a massive limitation on design and creativity anyway.

Like the underlying issues that people have with dungeons, are far more encompassing across the game direction itself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zairava

just delete the dungeon category entirely at that point lol. Just title the category as boss rushes

---

Funnily enough, that's basically what I do! Lol
9 years playing this game, I haven't ran dungeons for almost 7 years.
I do them exactly once for the MSQ, maybe to get glamour.

Why? They're boring.

When I played another MMORPG, I used to run dungeons all the time, but here I don't enjoy it.

best they can do is replace some trash packs with bosses so they can have 4boss dungeons sometimes but personally that won't change much.
And making boss should take much more time and effort so prob not worth it.
I can't think of anything to make dungeons different without making it worse for some ppl.
Cuz you don't want a dungeon that is harder than others or ppl will hate getting it on roulette, can't make it take longer as well.
Adding puzzles and stuff like ARR dungeons is also not for everyone and I can see my self getting annoyed after third time of doing it.
And if they make a dungeon so different then others well might as well just release it as different content.
Main way ppl queue into dungeons is roulette so every dungeon needs to be somewhat similar and it has to be the easiest content in the game cuz they are part of MSQ.
I don't think it will worth putting that much effort into dungeons beyond aesthetic tbh.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brandr

Funnily enough, that's basically what I do! Lol
9 years playing this game, I haven't ran dungeons for almost 7 years.
I do them exactly once for the MSQ, maybe to get glamour.

Why? They're boring.

When I played another MMORPG, I used to run dungeons all the time, but here I don't enjoy it.

---

don't know what you play but isn't other part of the game the reason for that?
Most content similar to xiv's dungeon tend to be much more basic and uninspiring like having only one boss or bosses having barely any mechanics.
You also tend to just steamroll everything with your meta builds that oneshot everything
or other players doing that for you.
The fun part for most of mmos dungeons are loots which xiv doesn't really have.

Wasn't it said these developers are put on a schedule of sorts that keeps the standards as they are?

It feels like any deviation from it is considered bad for them least in my observation. I just don't think they're risk takers unlike other divisions of other games. I'm sure everyone has great ideas to stop the repeating process, but it feels like Criterion Dungeon was their answer, but those take longer to come out and its typically side story.

There is also the problem they've done it this way in so long that steering the ship at this point might not be worth it for them.

I thought I saw a article somewhere recently suggesting a lot of MMO Devs know that their games are too easy and boring, and its by design to keep their playerbase so they're not losing money.