Afterthoughts:Level Capped Dungeons

[Kosmos992k]

After we finished a friend of mine asked how it went.
He ranted to me about how he does not want to spend all day in a dungeon, how trash is a waste of time.
For the sake of argument I asked:
"What if they removed Trash from dungeons? What if Dungeons were just bosses? Aka: Boss Rush"
He then replied:
"Then it would be like LFR on WOW. That sucks. I'd leave"**snip**

You have just posted a great post about the complete contradiction posed by a great many burned out and/or bored end-game players.

They don't like trash, don't want puzzled, don't wantdungeons to take time, and don't want just a boss fight. But they do want big dungeons (presumably that can be sprinted through while avoiding all alternate paths, puzzles and trash which would slow them down), they want harder fights, but not fights tha take too long, and the drops must be good enough to entice them to run harder boss fights...etc... It's a complete contradiction, and i my view players such as this should not be playing this game because they really don't like the core gameplay and encounter - aka Dungeons.

Bonus topic:
Cause he said this and it bothers me SEVERELY...
Are Extreme Primals the "REAL" canon fights?!
Cause I seem to recall the MSQ fights being considered the "canonical" fights.

They are, but you encountered the revisionist, some might say elitist, point of view that says that the MSQ events are just there for bads, and the raids and EX primals are the only real fights in the game, MSQ mode is just easy mode for noobs and bads. Of course, it's not true, the MSQ is 'canon' everything else is an optional challenge for those who want a challenge unless it's too hard (such as Alex Savage), or doesn't drop extra phat loot to make it worth running. Otherwise why not just idle in Idylllshire....?



I don't expect my post will be well received by many. Ah well...

Personally, I like dungeons and would like larger dungeons with alternate paths, roaming mobs, respawning mobs and puzzles, but then I though that was kind of the point of adventuring, not just rushing the boss. boiling everything down to a boss rush makes it completely one dimensional and boring. I loathe speed runs, and completely dislike the fact that for level 50 dungeons the ilvl/level sync is so weak that we can essentially ignore most mechanics. Mechanics are what make Boss fights fun, because you employ the strategy needed to overcome the mechanic. Not so any more, now we just burn them down, and over-gear/heal through what were once party wipe mechanics. Perhaps I come from another age when people played games for fun, and now we only play them to cap tomes. Well, I saw we, but I don't cap anything, ever, I'm too busy playing and having fun.

They could just make a ilvl sync to the ilvl which drops in the dungeon and it wouldn't be overgeared at release and would keep challenging in some way.

I agree completely. Previously this suggestion has been shouted down by players who whined that doing this would make it harder for them to speed run content to farm light for their Relic..or to cap their Tomes. The result is content so mind numbingly easy that the same players complain bitterly about the game being too easy, but suggest making dungeons sync more strongly to preserve difficult and those same folks will shout from the highest peaks how that will ruin the game for them. I really wish that SE would stop listening to those voices, they hurt the game more than they help it.

Yoshi made it clear we won't see anything unique about dungeons. After the original Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius dungeons were a snooze fest. It's kinda shame really it's like anything that requires thought or mixes up the norm is shunned upon.

You must have played different versions of AK or PS. Pre-nerf PS required actual thought and strategy, but since most groups didn't want to do that, PS in particular became the poster child for dungeon content that was 'too hard'. AK with the original Demon wall was similarly chided over difficulty. I remember running them both, long before I hit ilvl 90. AK requires some thought and strategy, even the trash pulls had to be approached correctly, and the demon wall absolutely requires teamwork and strategy. Pharos was a great dungeon, but it wasn't so great if the DPS didn't understand and/or play the mechanics right. Ultimately both were nerfed and powercreep resulted in them becoming what you described. Original AK and original PS were not snooze fests, assuming of course that you actually wanted to be there instead of standing in More Donuts.

The reason people feel inclined to just rush through dungeons is because they don't offer anything of worth beyond tomes.

You're meant to have fun, running them with friends....that's meant to be a reward too.

On top of that, the dungeons themselves tend to not be challenging, or on release end up being at a level where the majority of players doing them are already overgeared for it.

The original ARR dungeons were not like this, and the level 50 ones were not entirely like that either. If ilvl sync forced gear to the level of that which drops in the dungeon, all those overly easy dungeons would suddenly become challenging again. Perhaps too challenging for some. So we'd probably have to give a 20-ilvl margin in Sync...

The trash mobs themselves don't really pose a great challenge or really force players to approach them differently. Group them up, AOE them down, done. Rinse and repeat.

Overgear is a terrible thing, but like the OP said players don't want challenging trash. So even if level sync was tighter and you had to actually play the trash, people would just complain about the time taken and the effort required and that their uber-gear was nerfed by Sync...

[Defias]

@Kosmos992k

I agree with alot of your points. I have no anger or malice either.
Maybe SE needs to the reduce the tome grind?
Maybe gear should last for 2 or 3 patches?

I feel like if Dungeons rewarded full clears, and etc players would welcome the "sprawling" labyrinth dungeons so many claim to yearn for.

I just dislike speed runs I feel. I enjoy group gameplay but I dislike spamming AOEs.
I feel like maybe trash mobs need to be more Morbol like.
Something where we once again need to be careful.
I admit the idea to ilvl sync players that was mentioned seemed like a good start.
Folks want challenge but not enough challenge to "slow" them down.
But honestly why are we rushing? To afk in town?

As for our Bonus Topic:
I too feel my friend is the proper definition of elitist. But he thinks he is not. He states that grouping with a casual/solo player like me for the occassional roulette versus doing them with his FC/Raid group as a reason why he isn't Elitist.
Yet he turns around and tells me I don't play any real content.
Gold Saucer, Dungeons, Hardmodes, Beastmen, Hunts, don't count. Only "real endgame" such as Ex Primals & Raids do.

[Morningstar1337]

I too feel my friend is the proper definition of elitist. But he thinks he is not. He states that grouping with a casual/solo player like me for the occassional roulette versus doing them with his FC/Raid group as a reason why he isn't Elitist.
Yet he turns around and tells me I don't play any real content.
Gold Saucer, Dungeons, Hardmodes, Beastmen, Hunts, don't count. Only "real endgame" such as Ex Primals & Raids do.

That has me wondering if the term has degraded into a mere buzzword by the playerbase?

[bass9020]

You must have played different versions of AK or PS. Pre-nerf PS required actual thought and strategy, but since most groups didn't want to do that, PS in particular became the poster child for dungeon content that was 'too hard'. AK with the original Demon wall was similarly chided over difficulty. I remember running them both, long before I hit ilvl 90. AK requires some thought and strategy, even the trash pulls had to be approached correctly, and the demon wall absolutely requires teamwork and strategy. Pharos was a great dungeon, but it wasn't so great if the DPS didn't understand and/or play the mechanics right. Ultimately both were nerfed and powercreep resulted in them becoming what you described. Original AK and original PS were not snooze fests, assuming of course that you actually wanted to be there instead of standing in More Donuts.

Thats what I meant I think my wording was off with that sentence. Pre nerf they were great dungeons, people may not agree but I loved them. Now dungeons are bland and uninteresting. The only thing trash pulls offer now are gates that block you from doing full speed runs.

[Kosmos992k]

Thats what I meant I think my wording was off with that sentence. Pre nerf they were great dungeons, people may not agree but I loved them. Now dungeons are bland and uninteresting. The only thing trash pulls offer now are gates that block you from doing full speed runs.

Agreed. Sadly my first experience of Pharos Sirius (pre nerf)included a DPS who swore he knew the mechanics and had done it before. We wiped to the first Boss so many times, my wife (our healer) almost quit from frustration. Instead of playing themechanics, or listening to the tank(me), our know it all dps proceeded to dps the hell out of the boss, and bitched at our healer for not healing. She was too busy running from the adds, after numerous wipes we somehow got through. This was long before any real overgearing was involved, there was no way to burn the boss,you had to play the adds. Similar fail on the next boss - failed mechanics and can't burn the boss, and the fool ran ahead to drag trash packs to us on the stairs..not the safe landings. I never ran another dungeon with that person again... LOL

The thing was, depsite that, it was still fun, because it was not brain dead easy.

[bass9020]

Agreed. Sadly my first experience of Pharos Sirius (pre nerf)included a DPS who swore he knew the mechanics and had done it before. We wiped to the first Boss so many times, my wife (our healer) almost quit from frustration. Instead of playing themechanics, or listening to the tank(me), our know it all dps proceeded to dps the hell out of the boss, and bitched at our healer for not healing. She was too busy running from the adds, after numerous wipes we somehow got through. This was long before any real overgearing was involved, there was no way to burn the boss,you had to play the adds. Similar fail on the next boss - failed mechanics and can't burn the boss, and the fool ran ahead to drag trash packs to us on the stairs..not the safe landings. I never ran another dungeon with that person again... LOL

The thing was, depsite that, it was still fun, because it was not brain dead easy.

Yep exactly people tend to skip or try to skip whatever they can but sometimes it just doesnt work and now we no longer have things like that in dungeon. :/ I feel like if they added these places to the open world as an optional thing it would make it a little more interesting. Leave the easy speed run no brain tactics to the Duty Finder and add puzzles and unique gating to the open world versions.

[Ilitsa]

Beautiful words

Pretty much all the posts I've seen you do lately, I've agreed with completely, just thought I'd point that out