2 new dungeons ?

[Colorful]

I was under the impression we were getting new dungeons and not hard modes of older dungeons.

Seems like that's not the case, and with only two dungeons it's disappointing. Let's hope that the airship exploration is interesting enough to be a replacement for that missing dungeon (although the visuals being similar to Neverreap with all the floating islands already put me off).

Arboretum looks interesting though.

[Anzaman]

Seems like that's not the case, and with only two dungeons it's disappointing. Let's hope that the airship exploration is interesting enough to be a replacement for that missing dungeon (although the visuals being similar to Neverreap with all the floating islands already put me off).

Is it this one?

"We’re planning to introduce new content where you explore uncharted islands with your crafted airships. Multiple parties can explore the same island at the same time. The concept will be to defeat lots of strong monsters. Gathering nodes are also available on these islands, so once the island is secured by the battle team, gatherers will be able to gather items to take back.

We wanted to give an old MMO-like feel for this one, and for FFXIV it'll be fresh content that hasn't been seen before."

If it is.. I would've preferred to get the third dungeon as my FC still doesn't have house, and no access to airship crafting.

[Gunspec]

If it is.. I would've preferred to get the third dungeon as my FC still doesn't have house, and no access to airship crafting.

Yoshida said there will be an airship from Ishgard for players without housing. (Actually he said that it would be for players without an FC, coyly trying to avoid the issue that many FCs can't find houses.)

It leaves me wondering what advantage there will be to actually having the airship though, because they are a fair investment. I've blown through about 12 stacks of coke so far, and I'm just getting started.

Now, what was weird is that he said there would be super difficult monsters there, like level 80-90. Not sure how monsters of that level would work, since our accuracy would theoretically be nil.

As for Pharos Sirius, I actually like the idea of revisiting dungeons like we do. It's almost always a completely different experience, and we get to know how the location has changed overtime due to our previous actions. Halati was cleared of monsters and became a fighting arena again, the longstop got taken over by a rival faction of goblins, Haukke manor became the haunting ground of the voidsent that the previous owner had sacrificed herself to, etc.

I keep looking at Pharos Sirius from the outside, and I wonder if the lighthouse will actually be repaired in the story like they claim they are trying to do. Now we get to see the result of the repairs in a new dungeon. When you compare that to other mmos which have static story elements that never evolve (ie. hard mode is just the same exact group of cultists with the same boss and everything), I really like the direction choose in FFXIV.

[Tisharu]

SE, please for the love of god can you please stop pushing the 2 Expert Dungeon down to high when you released 2 new Dungeon? Please just add it on top of the Expert one that we currently have. Once you have 4 Dungeon in the Expert and are releasing another 2 New Dungeon, then go ahead and move the 2 old one down to high.

I find myself really overwhelm now with so many Dungeon to unlock just for a High Roloutte because they keep pushing Expert Dungeon down to High. Not only that, but I'm getting tired and bored really fast that I can only grind 2 Dungeon on Expert.

[Adrasteia]

SE, please for the love of god can you please stop pushing the 2 Expert Dungeon down to high when you released 2 new Dungeon? Please just add it on top of the Expert one that we currently have. Once you have 4 Dungeon in the Expert and are releasing another 2 New Dungeon, then go ahead and move the 2 old one down to high.

I find myself really overwhelm now with so many Dungeon to unlock just for a High Roloutte because they keep pushing Expert Dungeon down to High. Not only that, but I'm getting tired and bored really fast that I can only grind 2 Dungeon on Expert.

Going to agree with this. I like having variety for EXDR, and I'd personally be fine with ilvl-capped versions of the previous Expert Dungeons appearing in EXDR.

[Rahzel]

Seems like that's not the case, and with only two dungeons it's disappointing. Let's hope that the airship exploration is interesting enough to be a replacement for that missing dungeon (although the visuals being similar to Neverreap with all the floating islands already put me off).
Arboretum looks interesting though.

I believe the reason given for only adding two new dungeons from now on was so that they could put more development time into things other than just dungeons for content patches. 3.1 promises to add a lot: An entire new system to the Gold Saucer on par with TT and Chocobo racing, a substantial expansion to FC airships, and QoL additions for the housing system; all of which are no small feat. Hopefully, that trend continues moving forward.

That said, I'll admit that I was a little disappointed that one of the two new dungeons is a hard mode.

[Colorful]

I believe the reason given for only adding two new dungeons from now on was so that they could put more development time into things other than just dungeons for content patches. 3.1 promises to add a lot: An entire new system to the Gold Saucer on par with TT and Chocobo racing, a substantial expansion to FC airships, and QoL additions for the housing system; all of which are no small feat. Hopefully, that trend continues moving forward.

That said, I'll admit that I was a little disappointed that one of the two new dungeons is a hard mode.

The thing is we got all that, without sacrificing dungeons in 2.x, didn't we? The marriage system, FC/Personal housing system (not just QoL changes) the entirety of the Gold Saucer (2 big games, minigames, the area, rewards). The only big thing we're getting otherwise that's different is the Airship changes, which is why I'm hoping it'll be somewhat decent.

[Moonleg]

The thing is we got all that, without sacrificing dungeons in 2.x, didn't we? The marriage system, FC/Personal housing system (not just QoL changes) the entirety of the Gold Saucer (2 big games, minigames, the area, rewards). The only big thing we're getting otherwise that's different is the Airship changes, which is why I'm hoping it'll be somewhat decent.

The question we will never get an answer to, though, is how much of that was worked on during the 2.0 production phase. Was the Gold Saucer half finished when 2.0 launched and just needed more tweaking and testing? Was the marriage system ready to go once the last few bugs got ironed out? I think it's fair to say they had a bunch of things that were beyond the stage of being just a fancy idea on a napkin, but sooner or later they had to run out of those.

[Airget]

The thing is we got all that, without sacrificing dungeons in 2.x, didn't we? The marriage system, FC/Personal housing system (not just QoL changes) the entirety of the Gold Saucer (2 big games, minigames, the area, rewards). The only big thing we're getting otherwise that's different is the Airship changes, which is why I'm hoping it'll be somewhat decent.

The examples you presented though don't require the same amount of balance as dungeons do and battle content in general.

Golden Saucer, only real balance are MGP values
Triple Triad, opponent AI and point value of tourney
Marriage, no balance at all

Dungeons however have to be fine tuned and thus they require more effort in the quality assurance department then other content they have released. You might see it as "sacrificing" but honestly I see it as expanding on a system by providing an option that isn't just defeat 3 bosses get loot and win. The sky content has opportunity to be more flexible than dungeons because it doesn't have to follow a formula to entice players to go to them, they can play each island as it's own unique entity with positives and negatives unlike dungeons where they have to play the same, take the same amount of time, and the difficulty curve has to be worth the reward.

Make a dungeon to hard, people will just flock to the easier dungeon because they can be done faster (This is what happened with brayflox HM)

Dungeon takes to long, they will ignore it and do a more time efficient dungeon (Again brayflox HM)

They learned early on that if they aren't careful with finely tuning each dungeon to take the same amount of time/have similar difficulty that people are less likely to do them.

[CyrilLucifer]

I honestly don't care that one is a Hard mode dungeon so long as I don't have to run Neverreap in roulette again and again and again for another 4 months.