Bring back crowd control. Bring back branching dungeons. Bring back ADVENTURE.

[Reynhart]

Doesn't that face the exact same issue as branching paths, but now adding different player priorities into the mix? Actually, it seems to me that it would be even worse. It's similar to the conflicts you'd get from PotD runners who want to farm silver boxes at lower floors.

That's because progression and Aetherpool farming are not the same. The extreme majority of people do dungeons for the end rewards, and probably in roulettes, so you just create a system when "fully" doing the dungeon will give more rewards.

For the unusual situation where your goal is not simply to get the reward, it's just basic etiquette to talk about it as soon as possible.

Honestly, I'd love a system like you're suggesting for content of either a premade variety or something more like exploratory missions, but I just don't see it meshing well with a standard DF experience.

In my opinion, I think the game should move away from the Duty Finder monopoly. It's a very good thing if you need a quick run and you don't have time to create a party, but right now, even if you have that time, there's really no benefit of doing so (let's be honest, it's fairly unlikely you will end with a group that lacks the skills to clear any dungeon smoothly).

Premades should have additionnal perks, like min ilvl giving you additionnal rewards, or, like I suggested in several BLU topics, each job having limited features like traits or special item bonuses that wouldn't be available in matchmaking, making your job more powerful and/or more interesting to play.

As much as I like the idea of non-linear dungeons, it will take a whole day before the power freaks announce THIS is how it must be done, end of discussion. They did it back in ARR, complaining if someone wanted to take the sideways/deadends for chests, or the route that was 30 seconds slower. The exact thing would happen again.

If you have a random layout, you can't have that issue since no power freak will preemptively know where to go optimally. And again, if opening all chests or killing all mobs increases the reward (roulette included) by 25% (each), people will take the extra time to do it. (You should probably slightly reduce the basic reward compared to now, though)

Multiple paths in dungeons? Players will choose the one of least resistance.

Not if they don't know where that path is. Since you talked about Toto-Rak, imagine if cells were placed randomly, you wouldn't have any choice but to look everywhere for them until you got enough of them. And on that topic, my guess is that people hate Toto-Rak not because of the branching path, but because of the sticky floor during the last third that adds absolutely nothing gameplaywise and only makes you lose time.