Could SE at least pretend to do an Effort ?

[Arrius]

I mean, we are nearly 2 expansion in.

If the existing appearances ain't scratching your fashion itch, then anything else that comes up as undyeable dungeon sets probably won't do either.
And lets be real - Unless you can color them, they usually get instantly glamoured over anyway.

[Zephera]

No,i took that exemple on purpose,because punching people is bad yes,but what do you think it is for a compagny make a lot of money,using somecjeap method to get more money ?

Assault is a legal and moral issue, re-used gear in an MMO is not a legal or moral issue, I can't be clearer than that.

Also, I think that you'll find that designing and implementing gear is actually kind of difficult to do within time constraints, especially when SE's employees have other stuff to work on, and not just content for this game but likely other SE games too.

[Transient_Shadow]

I have a feeling this is because they poured so many resources into Eureka.

[Liam_Harper]

I'm not sure why they keep churning out dungeons at this point.

If the glamour isn't worth it, the ilv isn't worth it, the tomes aren't worth it due to more efficient sources, the difficulty is too easy and there isn't any other replay value then who are they making dungeons for? The only target audience I can think of is fresh lv70's trying to gear up, but then they're only a very temporary ilv stepping stone into better content, assuming the fresh lv70 doesn't just buy crafted.

They're putting in lots of resources patch after patch after patch to throw out dungeons to a tiny niche audience and giving the endgame player nothing worthwhile. And if a game has less endgame activity, then what is the new player aiming to gear up for?

I'd love to see them take a good look at dungeons. Make them relevant for all players.

[Zsolen]

I'm not one of them, but a lot of people like to run dungeons with roulettes. The ilvl is about to increase, and the tomes will be useful for everyone. Tomes are needed to craft the gear.

Edit: I'm not sure why this thread hasn't been merged with the other one. They simply moved the original thread to dungeons.

[Iscah]

I'm not sure why they keep churning out dungeons at this point.

If the glamour isn't worth it, the ilv isn't worth it, the tomes aren't worth it due to more efficient sources, the difficulty is too easy and there isn't any other replay value then who are they making dungeons for? The only target audience I can think of is fresh lv70's trying to gear up, but then they're only a very temporary ilv stepping stone into better content, assuming the fresh lv70 doesn't just buy crafted.

They're putting in lots of resources patch after patch after patch to throw out dungeons to a tiny niche audience and giving the endgame player nothing worthwhile. And if a game has less endgame activity, then what is the new player aiming to gear up for?

I'd love to see them take a good look at dungeons. Make them relevant for all players.

Dungeons are now niche content.... in an RPG?

(Yes yes, an MMORPG, but it's got a lot of traditional RPG blood in it still, and can essentially be played like one - level your single class through the story, play each dungeon once as you reach it, continue onwards.)

If this was a standard single-player RPG, you'd only do the dungeon once anyway. Maybe go back in for treasure or side rooms that you missed, but you wouldn't complete it over and over.

An RPG without dungeons would be very empty.

[polyphonica]

Assuming the FF14 census number are correct and ff14 maintains 620,00 active global subscriptions, I fail to how how anyone could fault customers having certain expectations of the product. With those sub numbers SE is pulling in 9mil every month...

FWIW, it's not as much as you think at this scale. First the fact that many are paying less than that, and payment processors take a cut. Global development and localization-related employee costs alone (salaries, benefits, insurance, facilities, taxes, etc.) will probably eat up at least a third of that. Then you have technical infrastructure for the game and supporting services itself (likely thousands of servers and the staff supporting that infrastructure). Then you have your global voice acting talent and production costs (at a premium because of the synchronized schedule). Then you have your marketing/advertising costs (incl. having a big presence at all the trade shows). Then you have your customer support staff and all that infrastructure. Then you have corporate supporting services like legal, finance, HR, and management that have their cut. Then you have outsourcing for various parts of development that they don't have the staff to do in-house. All this and they still have to cover their sunk costs (like 1.x), plus contribute at least some money to the company's bottom line, hopefully.

I'm not saying they're poor or anything (I know the "small indie company" meme as well as anyone), but at the same time, I think people just look at numbers like $8-9 million and think "that's an insane amount of money!" -- but for a project of this scale, it's just going to basically be covering their costs. The merchandise (which has its own costs, incl. production and distribution) and various up-sales are probably where any actual profit comes from. MMOs are really expensive.

[KisaiTenshi]

An RPG without dungeons would be very empty.

Not really. Not every RPG, even JRPG's, are fantasy games, thus certain content that is labeled "dungeon" is really just another example of a self-enclosed puzzle.

Take something like a licensed game (eg Batman, X-Men, Sailor Moon, etc) usually an RPG based on a licensed property is legally bound to include certain elements and not whole-cloth create new ones. We may call them dungeons in a fantasy game, but really they're just another zone/instance/puzzle with additional combat rules attached in the case of a MMORPG. In a single player game like Mass Effect or Fallout that isn't a fantasy game on the surface, still has places to explore, they just come in a different forms like planets, buildings, spaceships, etc.

An RPG with no "overworld" is still a world. Ultima Underworld I and II, have slightly different takes on this. In UWI, you're just thrown into the literal dungeon at the beginning and it's the first video game that really looks anything like a modern MMORPG. So you spend most of the game fighting monsters, and other people who had been thrown into the dungeon years ago if you piss them off. Then you discover that there's like dwarves elsewhere in the dungeon, who have always been there. The game doesn't present you with MMO-like quests, you find someone, you either talk to them, or you can kill them. UWII the "hub" world is the castle that has been encased in blackrock (so it has become a dungeon,) but you find a thing in the basement that lets you into several parallel worlds, one of which is a flying castle with sentient cats, and your decisions ultimately send it violently to the ground to progress. Both Underworld games, gear wear, the necessity to eat, and consumable items are a thing, so if you spend too much time doing silly things or insist on destroying things, you can actually block your progress and will need to start the game over. Much like Ultima 1-8, you can block your progress by doing stupid things like going on murder sprees. But Ultima 7 was GTA long before GTA. Ultima 7 had "dungeons" but they were extensions of the overworld, and operate similarly to Oblivion/Skyrim/Fallout, where killing key NPC's, makes them stay dead. But games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim just infinitely respawn certain types of monsters on the field, but you can completely clear a "dungeon" and it stays clear, because those mobs were part of the "dungeon puzzle".

FFXIV's dungeon's really have very little puzzle to them. The sunken temple of Qarn is the only one with a direct puzzle in it. How do you exactly make a puzzle that everyone has to do, but can't be spoiled by videos/walkthroughs? That's the conundrum with trying to make any game last beyond it's initial release week. Really FFXIV's dungeons are more like dance choroegraphy. You have to do everything in order, or you're going to be doing it again.

Content that isn't dungeon/instance based, would have to be more puzzle-oriented, and the internet makes puzzle solving too easy. Dungeons could use a RNG element to determine which doors are locked and unlocked, which traps activate, and which paths are dead ends. eg, there are multiple solutions to getting to Boss room C, but you can choose to do boss A or B, both or neither, if the starting conditions open the path that way, or you could find the keys and choose to bypass A and B. PotD/HoH does a bit of this, but doesn't really present any solution other than "kill everything to progress"

Like Wizardy Online wasn't a great game, but at least their dungeons offered different kinds of puzzles, for example one dungeon had you answer 5 quizzes to unlock the next area. Another dungeon had you do quests for a NPC within the dungeon. Like each dungeon was a puzzle itself, and not something you were going to complete in 10 minutes, it was something you could spend all week on. Thus each dungeon was more like Eureka in design, but without the intense grind to solve it.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Since when are dungeons puzzle oriented...

[Lunalepsy]

It's not about "game production" or giving the developers a break! They chose vertical progression over horizontal progression, so they have to keep up with the Joneses.