Revenge of the Round Arena!

[LadyVal]

I ran through Stone Vigil and Dzmeal Darkhold the other day for the first time in a long time, and it was absolutely refreshing to be in dungeons that made sense. We need more of that, please.

I think, and I could be wrong here, but I think both of those are 1.0 dungeons that the 2.0 team kept. I have noticed that dungeons like Cutter's Cry (another 1.0 dungeon I think) are more "open" and have a lot more optional, branching paths, but they take longer to run. So I think the 2.0 team's philosophy is to try to imitate that open environment, because if you think like in Cutter's and Dzmeal Darkhold, people usually just run the content in a straight line anyways, without the optional rooms. So I think the dev team decided "Well, let's make it look like there's an optional path here, but not actually add one, because who is going to walk down that path anyways?"

The mindset is great for the efficiency-minded gamer, but I agree that it does take away some of the polish and life of the environment of a dungeon. I would like to see some dungeon branching inspired by T2; you may kill the first dungeon boss, and then have to choose between two for the second boss, and your decision changes the final leg of the dungeon and final boss. Also I don't think it would hurt to add back in the little flavor bits like in Cutter's, traveling via sand pits, or the random dragons swooping down in SV, or heck even just the doors from DD. Just like something that feels like the dungeon is interacting with you, and you're interacting with it, instead of just the sterile feeling of being a chess piece on a board.

[cyborgmermaid]

The comments when Steps of Faith first released probably still leaves the dev team salty. They experimented with combining mechanics and cooperation only to have the fans condemn the fight. I would wager this is why we are stuck with circles and squares.

All the actually skilled players I've spoken with said they absolutely loved that fight pre-nerf.

[Moomba33]

The problem with Steps was that it took longer than everything else in trial roulette. Coupled with the high chance of failing with new people in the party it meant that veterans would abandon it instantly when they got it in roulette so new players wouldn't even get a chance to try.
I wonder if it would have done better in MS roulette since it'd be more comparable time wise...though then we'd run into a problem where it's likely that not a lot of people geared enough to get into Steps ran MS roulette at the time.

I liked the fight myself. Even post nerf it's at least something really different compared to most trials in the game.

I doubt we'll ever see a truly difficult main story boss in XIV. With the single players games you are free to try things as many times as you like without worrying about others getting frustrated and leaving. And as turned based games they're more about setup and strategy with less skill needed on execution.

[ADVSS]

Pre nerf steps was pretty refreshing, it really felt like a big dragon you couldnt just flail a metal toothpick(sword) and kill, but i ca sympathize with people that couldnt clear it or had a hard time(took me a couple days in df not straight just a few tries a day)

[Jetstream_Fox]

Pre nerf steps was pretty refreshing, it really felt like a big dragon you couldnt just flail a metal toothpick(sword) and kill, but i ca sympathize with people that couldnt clear it or had a hard time(took me a couple days in df not straight just a few tries a day)

It wasn't a hard fight, the main reason I've come to believe why it was so far as it required 8 people to do more than just the basics of their job. With the whole needing to use the environment to dish out the major damage in prenerf, most people likely came into the fight thinking it was like all the others. Instead they were to a whole new type of fight where communication really took up more presence than skill.

That's not to say people shouldn't have struggled, it just points out that the games communities as a whole had gotten comfortable with the games boss developments up until that point. Had something similar to steps been added earlier in a different patch cycle, steps wouldn't have been as hard because we would have had a reference point to a similar type of existing content.

[nexas506]

I agree. Dungeons are becoming a bit too linear and simple.

Now a days it's walk ahead, fight a boss in a circular area, and repeat 2 more times.

I miss open areas and branching pathways (like cutters cry) that are more similar to classic FF dungeons. And what happened to the puzzles? The scale / stone tablets puzzle from sunken temple is one of my favorites.
We need more things than make you think instead of just run ahead and kill stuff.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I agree. Dungeons are becoming a bit too linear and simple.

Now a days it's walk ahead, fight a boss in a circular area, and repeat 2 more times.

I miss open areas and branching pathways (like cutters cry) that are more similar to classic FF dungeons. And what happened to the puzzles? The scale / stone tablets puzzle from sunken temple is one of my favorites.
We need more things than make you think instead of just run ahead and kill stuff.

As fun as puzzles are, doing them for the billionth time the same way ain't much of a puzzle.

[Alleo]

I agree with you OP.

Older dungeons gave me the feeling that you are truly in a temple for example. Having some puzzles in them was nice too.

At first I hoped that "antitower" also means that we explore a tower but most of the time we are fighting outside of it against bosses on round platforms again. We barely see anything from the inside of the tower.

What (imo) would have been better: We start the dungeon by going through that strange random wooden door and find a teleporter behind it. (All of this would still be in a cutscene) We would arrive ingame where we arrive now and we land directly at the first boss who would be the true gatekeeper. After that we would directly go into the castle and fight our way down.

This would make it a little different from all those adds-> boss runs and we would be able to see more of this castle which would give me the feeling that we are truly fighting through it. They could have used some funny mechanics where we are running upside down and need to activate a switch to stand right again. (This would be outside of fighting). Maybe they could have left some notes on desks explaining the results of the scholars in this place. I always liked those.

But in the end we got a really good looking but boring dungeon with round platforms again. (It would already be nice if each boss platform changes a little to add a theme that fits the boss, like a music note as a platform for the frog boss)

About puzzles: Yes they might loose their charm after a lot of runs but nothing will remain fun if you run it a lot of times. For me its better to have something in it that will only excite me the first few runs than nothing at all. And even if it means that people will find the best way to speedrun such puzzle dungeons or dungeons with more than one path it would still be way more fun the first times that we run them (at least for me ) than having one straight path with only trash mobs and bosses. Really the 3.2 dungeons were already boring after running them one time..thats really bad design for me.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

People would just whine that the puzzles are "too time consuming" until the devs forego them next patch. This is why we will never have nice things.