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

[DinahDemiurge]

i feel like the Original poster doesn't have a lot of experience with MMOs in general OR just plays in a pre-made. Because if you play with the randos in this and other games you would know this is a terrible idea. i mean its great on paper (or pen and paper) but as others and I have said once people find the "optimal" path if anyone deviates from that path or doesn't know that path they will be berated and kicked from groups.

i mean hell i have seen groups kick a tank because they aren't wall to wall pulling because "reeeeeee it might take me 5 extra minutes to complete a dungeon!"

I have been playing MMOs since I was 13 years old. 1999 Everquest. So trust me, I have seen first hand the degradation of the genre. I have more fond memories of challenges and triumph from everquest and FFXI than any theme park treadmill mmo. Many 20 year vets I am sure would agree with me. Why do you think that is?

[TheRogueX]

Keep in mind this is a progressively skyward mmo... If it doesn't get harder, ur just doing everything you're already doing from previous expansions. Personally I've felt mechanics and parts of this game get progressively more difficult... It should be that way.

lol, nothing in this game gets harder. The numbers get bigger and there might be a new* mechanic to deal with, but nothing is hard.

Even the "hardest" content in the game is just memorizing where to stand and how to push buttons in a proper order; It is high school marching band in a video game.

I have been playing MMOs since I was 13 years old. 1999 Everquest. So trust me, I have seen first hand the degradation of the genre. I have more fond memories of challenges and triumph from everquest and FFXI than any theme park treadmill mmo. Many 20 year vets I am sure would agree with me. Why do you think that is?

I played Ultima Online, but that game was so wonky that it's not really applicable to the modern MMO genre. But then I also played games like Anarchy Online, Lineage II, original WoW, and other late 90s/early 2000s MMOs and yeah, while the games were rather primitive compared to now, the challenges were greater and the players were better. There used to be such a thing as horizontal progressions, racial differences, and different builds for the same character class. There used to be more than one way to do most things in these games. FFXIV has completely abandoned that for the "Huge-DPS-or-Bust" crowd. Even things like Enrage mechanics come from the 'we don't want to spend too much time here so if we can't get this done in x minutes cheat kill us to force us to start over' attitude of modern gamers. My first real experience with raids was Antharas in Lineage II.. raids in this are a joke.

[Reynhart]

Choose one and go with it.

Exactly.

However, you do understand that multiple layouts are essentially a different dungeon that would have to be designed and tested. That is not likely to happen with the game's restrictions. Unless we want less dungeons overall.

Like you said, they already have a system to generate random dungeons. It's not like the predetermined layout have such a great design that random map would make a big difference.

I never said it was. That doesn't change that it makes players divert from the linear path and that's the point.

Like I said, as much as the hint in Sastasha. And "linear" doesn't automatically means a direct corridor, but simply the same single mandatory path.

Expecting anything like that to progress the MSQ just isn't going to happen ever.

Basically, a MSQ dungeon could be the size and design of 2-3 floors of Deep Dungeon, and it would be more interesting than what we have now. And you'll run the expert dungeons far more than you would PoTD of HoH.

i mean its great on paper (or pen and paper) but as others and I have said once people find the "optimal" path if anyone deviates from that path or doesn't know that path they will be berated and kicked from groups.

Why are people so adamant that there must be an "optimal path" ?

[Reinfeld]

So ...

No on crowd control. Crowd control doesn't add any difficulty to the player, it just makes it easier for bad players to troll their group. Hard pass.

No to branching dungeons. Look, I absolutely love open-ended RPGs where you have these dungeons with sprawling paths. It's so much fun and excitement, but it's a horrible match for the current psyche of MMO players. You may get some good times in these dungeons for a couple weeks, but once an optimal path has been determined, players will berate and ridicule any tank that does not take the optimal path. It's an added level of toxicity that we can do without.

There are games where tanks can actually make meaningful decisions in the realm of enemy pulls and keeping aggro, and often in those titles CC has a place as well. But the way FFXIV is designed at it's core is just totally unsuitable for that kind of play.

[TheRogueX]

Why are people so adamant that there must be an "optimal path" ?

Because modern mmo players are very impatient, and the dungeons need to be able to be hurried through. People don't play the games to enjoy playing the games anymore; they play for the 'end game.' The rest of the stuff only matters because they have to do it to optimize their end game play. I'm honestly surprised there isn't an MMO called 'End Game The MMO' that starts everybody at max level with 'raid ready' gear and that consists of only 'raids' with no story or plot or any of that superfluous stuff that just gets in the way of grinding raids.

[Luna_K]

i mean hell i have seen groups kick a tank because they aren't wall to wall pulling because "reeeeeee it might take me 5 extra minutes to complete a dungeon!"

I think some dungeons need more tank stops. areas where you need to defeat the enemies before you can continue. too many times I've had a tank pull literally everything, wipe, then get mad a the healer and dps. some even leave after the wipe. why are you trying to speedrun the game? are we really saving time if we wipe cuz you had to pull everything? I've had ppl say they have a raid or something to get to in like 2 min, and I'm like 'why did you even que for a dungeon then?". sry for the rant, but I come across too many ppl who seem to be determined to not want to enjoy the game.

[TheRogueX]

I think some dungeons need more tank stops. areas where you need to defeat the enemies before you can continue. too many times I've had a tank pull literally everything, wipe, then get mad a the healer and dps. some even leave after the wipe. why are you trying to speedrun the game? are we really saving time if we wipe cuz you had to pull everything? I've had ppl say they have a raid or something to get to in like 2 min, and I'm like 'why did you even que for a dungeon then?". sry for the rant, but I come across too many ppl who seem to be determined to not want to enjoy the game.

I had a run where the newbie tank did a huge wall-to-wall, without his tank stance on, and died because I had to be careful with casting so I wouldn't steal aggro and have everyone die. After I rezzed him he turned his stance on and the rest of the dungeon had no troubles... yet he blamed ME for his ignorance at the start of the fight... It was in ARF.

[Luna_K]

I had a run where the newbie tank did a huge wall-to-wall, without his tank stance on, and died because I had to be careful with casting so I wouldn't steal aggro and have everyone die. After I rezzed him he turned his stance on and the rest of the dungeon had no troubles... yet he blamed ME for his ignorance at the start of the fight... It was in ARF.

I see, maybe the tank stance should just be turned on automatically, like some of the new gathering changes. perhaps it could be done away with and just factored into tanking, they got rid of protect, maybe tank stances should be next on the chopping block. i'm sry if it doesn't sound like i'm being nice, but I think they are pandering to new players and how to make the game easier for them.

[TheRogueX]

I see, maybe the tank stance should just be turned on automatically, like some of the new gathering changes. perhaps it could be done away with and just factored into tanking, they got rid of protect, maybe tank stances should be next on the chopping block. i'm sry if it doesn't sound like i'm being nice, but I think they are pandering to new players and how to make the game easier for them.

When they got rid of tank dps stances I really had no idea why they kept tank stances at all.

[Valic]

lol, nothing in this game gets harder. The numbers get bigger and there might be a new* mechanic to deal with, but nothing is hard.

Even the "hardest" content in the game is just memorizing where to stand and how to push buttons in a proper order; It is high school marching band in a video game.

Tbh, now I'm just not sure we're playing the same game. There was a point where there was an interesting shift from HW into SB that caused a significant amount of difficulty. Mainly because of the large amount of movement now required to dodge randomly placed aoe's with shorter countdowns on when they go off. New mechanics and more punishing numbers are typically what makes difficulty in the majority of games if you're going to try and be a snob about it.