1.0 instanced dungeons in ARR, no hard modes = suspicious...

[Skyl1n3]

Aurum Vale Hard Mode...the very thought makes most players shiver. All they'd have to do is bring back the original from 1.0 and make it a 4 man. That place was a bleedin NIGHTMARE.

It'll be a lot easier than vanilla Aurum as the stupid level sync won't apply for the HM version if there is ever going to be one.

[Urtear]

It'll be a lot easier than vanilla Aurum as the stupid level sync won't apply for the HM version if there is ever going to be one.

Ida know...Whenever new dungeons are released, there's always one that's a bigger buzz-kill than Buzz Killington. Lost City, Tam Tara, Sastasha hard modes...AV Hard would not only be a buzz kill, SE would go nuts with it. Lookit what they did with Titan when he was current content.

[KaerisKlyne]

On the bright side, at least not having hard modes for those instances means there's more of a chance for new content to be introduced once we have hard modes for everything else, right? Really I just wanna see how many more "lesser primals" they can stuff in as dungeon bosses in future releases lol, drink for every boss you see that you wish was an egi.

[axemtitanium]

This. I miss the old sastasha so much... /singletear

You mean Shposhpaeasdfasdfasjdfaksdfase?

[treuhavik]

You mean Shposhpaeasdfasdfasjdfaksdfase?

Actually, Mistbeard Cove is what I was considering the 1.0 equivalent of Sastasha, but yeah lol there was also Shposhae and Cassiopeia Hollow as far as open world La Noscean dungeons.

Bomb Baron anyone? So intense! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZzXWvl_UrM

Hungry for more extreme action? Watch this THM solo Great Buffalo for an hour! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MQfXkXhFeM

God, I really miss the open world of 1.0 but DAYUM was combat slow. I can't imagine retaining my sanity while building TP through auto-attacks anymore. Lopping off horns was cool though I guess...

[Anonymoose]

Actually, Mistbeard Cove is what I was considering the 1.0 equivalent of Sastasha

Sastasha actually is Mistbeard Cove. The area of Western Thanalan that the Sahagin took over is a large chunk of what used to be Bald Knoll. The early sections of Sastasha are a cave system that connects an area under Skull Valley to the sections of Mistbeard Cove that were sealed off behind a door in 1.0. Try looking at maps of both and using the Waverider Gate as your focal point.

[ruskie]

I'd like to see HM versions of the olde 4 but at the same time toto already has 2 paths and both are available. True some of those collapsed passage ways could be opened up to explore further. Cutters... I feel like that one has a rather large different path options. I'd set it something along the lines that instead of ants you got some magic users or something that you have to find and there's like multiple branching ports.

DD hmm maybe going deeper would be interesting there so part would be mostly the same while a part would be going deeper down...

AV maybe coincutter brke through some wall.

[Anonymoose]

Maybe they don't get hard modes because they already did. Those dungeons were no joke in their day. No sense giving them a third incarnation when you can give the others some airtime? Especially considering the new dungeons' resources were all built specifically for this version of the game and may be more versatile on the back-end (I have no idea).

1.0 dungeons where built without the plans to add Hard Modes, while the 2.0 dungeons where designed from the ground up with future HM's in mind. Assuming that's true (and I seem to recall a quote linked) the reason they don't have HM's is simply because the development resources where never there.

These points were confirmed today as the reason why those dungeons didn't get hard modes.

The main reason is that since these existed in Version 1.0, they were designed very differently from what we created in A Realm Reborn. Since they weren't created with the new system in mind, it would take almost as much effort to create a brand-new dungeon versus turning one of those into a Hard mode.

[Balipu]

That's 3/5 explained away right there. Hullbreaker concludes a series of namedrops about Mistbeard's legacy reaching all the way back to 1.0, and I'm guessing the Keeper of the Lake will do something very similar - maybe it'll even contain yet another "lesser summon," the same way Snowcloak did despite being primarily framed around Shiva. And that's 5/5, leaving you only with the four 1.0 dungeons left out.

Well, Keeper of the Lake might tie in with Mistbeard as it features the same Kraken from Hullbreaker and Shastasha Hard. By the way I think that makes it the toughest creature in the game so far. Beware Bahamut, we have a Kraken.

[Nalien]

I wouldn't be surprised if this infestation thing happens again, either, but that'd still be the same story - preoccupied House Dzemael lets unfinished keep with thin realm-membranes fill with Voidsent, again.

I know we've already covered why these dungeons wont be getting hard modes, but isn't that basically the case with half of the hard modes currently? Haukke Manor, Copperbell Mines, and Stone Vigil are all basically; "Thanks for clearing this place out, but we suck and somehow now it's worse", with us fighting the same enemies as before, more or less.

They could actually do something interesting with Dzemael Darkhold. Lets say a heretic takes an important member of House Dzemael hostage in there and we have to go save them, plot twist; The important Dzemael was actually the heretic and planned the whole Darkhold as a plot to unleash Voidsent upon Ishgard.

Heck, since World of Darkness is part of the Void, they could have actually tied Dzemael Darkhold (Hard) into the Crystal Tower story the same way Snowcloak/Keeper tie into the Main Scenario.

Well, Keeper of the Lake might tie in with Mistbeard as it features the same Kraken from Hullbreaker and Shastasha Hard.

Source? That's the first I'm hearing of Kraken making a third appearance.