I'm not excited about the future patch at all. Just one dungeon?

[Alaeacus]

I'm not that interested in the Raid scene. A lot of memorization and busy-work just to get gear to make that same memorization and busy-work a FRACTION easier to do. The rewards, to me, do not outweigh the hassle. Clearing it in Normal is appealing enough for me. Call me casual, idc.

I like dungeons, but I'm one of those weirdos that enjoys 24-man Raids the most out of all content. After completion, most Dungeons are really just on-rails mob fights designed to get exp and gear glam. To be honest I don't really mind them moving to a one-dungeon plan for future if they really are freeing up time for developing other innovative game additions.

HOWEVER...........If they free up ALL this HUGE dev time for other projects, and those other projects turn out to be nothing but a Eureka mob-grind clone and nothing else, I will be pretty angry with the game. The game needs innovation. We have enough time-wasting mindless activity.

[Jojoya]

I just wonder... how many years remaining I have in this game, til he turns it into a game I don't love anymore and end up unsubbing for good.

Yet he is the one that turned it into the game you loved as well.

Keep in mind that many of us are here because WoW went through the same process. We loved that game - then Blizzard changed it and we couldn't tolerate it anymore while others were happy with the changes.

Players ask developers for new and engaging content because anything will get boring over time if repeated too often. Dungeons have definitely gotten stale because most players want the short and straight hallway to the reward at the end and so developers design them that way. The days of Blackrock Depths (for those who can remember it from pre-Cataclysm WoW) are over in MMOs. For me, dungeons are no more engaging than hunt trains are. They're both repetitions of killing the same bosses in the same places for the sake of the tomestone grind. At least with hunt trains, there's a chance they'll get derailed by a S rank spawn for some variety. Nothing derails the duty finder group tunneled visioned on getting to the dungeon exit.

So if SE has ideas for new content and needs to reduce the number of dungeons they create each patch in order to work on those ideas, I'm all for it. Hopefully they deliver something new that the majority of players, or close to it, will enjoy even if it turns out I'm not one of them. Or maybe experimenting with the creation of that new content will give them ideas on how to give dungeons a fresh new design that will make them more fun in the future. Progress frequently means trying something new and failing before starting over and succeeding.

[linay]

Then I'll borrow the usually tossed around line, "Don't partake in it then."

If you're content with the current amount of content, why does it matter if they go with Mythic+ inspired dungeons? You'll still have the content you prefer while others will have something they enjoy.

I already addressed this. It can affect dungeon design, reward structure, job design/balance, etc. Even if I don't partake in the actual content, I can still be affected by it.

If you really just want to run that type of content, make it like deep dungeon (or the masked carnival), one dungeon per expansion separated from and doesn't affect other content and make it job agnostic so it doesn't affect job design outside of it with its own reward structure or fitting the current structure. In fact, make it so that limited jobs like BLU can join in on the "fun" too.

[SturmChurro]

If you really just want to run that type of content, make it like deep dungeon (or the masked carnival), one dungeon per expansion separated from and doesn't affect other content and make it job agnostic so it doesn't affect job design outside of it with its own reward structure or fitting the current structure. In fact, make it so that limited jobs like BLU can join in on the "fun" too.

I think BLU should be deleted from the game.

[Shurrikhan]

That's fine. If your only idea for "challenging and progressive" content is Mythic+, then I have no reason to support that. That's not even a "broad set of improvements." That's just one type of content. Who says content has to be "progressive" anyway? I value being able to say "I am done" with a piece of content and wait for the next one and meanwhile either do something else in the game and/or play other game or do other things.

Again, no one has even once asked for Mythic+, only a system that can accomplish something "like" what Mythic+ did. That is an incredibly "broad set" of options by which to expand midcore content, a frequently requested "improvement".

Progressive likewise does not mean limitless. It just means that you can start into it sooner and finish it later with finer increments of success, both more accessible and longer-lasting. It's the difference between a piece of content seeming directed solely at one group of players or another or challenging players to get as far as they can, pushing their own limits.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not that interested in the Raid scene. A lot of memorization and busy-work just to get gear to make that same memorization and busy-work a FRACTION easier to do. The rewards, to me, do not outweigh the hassle. Clearing it in Normal is appealing enough for me. Call me casual, idc.

"Casual" to me is when one is not willing to invest much time or effort (or really time multiplied by the effort over that duration(?)) into the game. That's leagues different from a section of content not appealing to you. So, I've no reason to call you that. (Not that I'd mean the term as anything derogatory, anyways, unless you were arguing over theorycrafting without having even learned your potencies or arguing E4S strats without having been in it.)

Raids are, for me, hit and miss. I like challenge, but certain types of challenges far more than others. I like adapting to new circumstances, needing to be aware of my teammates, and to make intelligent compromises. XIV raids just rarely ever play into any of that. Instead, they are far more scripted, and while I can appreciate that kind of challenge, too, it rates so low for me that it's hardly worth rushing back home from work to get straight into raiding at the tail end of those latest times I can keep a static for given my shifts. So, I don't.

I don't mind the difficulty; it's just not a form of difficulty that appeals to me enough when the challenge isn't something in small enough increments to be reasonably PuGed. I'd rather see something that requires more focus but less memorization and thereby has each player operating nearer the feeling of winging the fight, where that fight has its unique challenges but few enough ideosyncracies or "gotcha" mechanics to memorize that a hugely competent team could theoretically one- to three-shot it.

I don't think I'm alone in that, either, given what a small section of players clear Savage, whether that be due to the stress or mere lack of joy found in that content. Yet the only other options we have are dungeons, which are still a snoozefest to much of that same group, and extreme primals, which are likewise punishing to non-veterans for a brief time and then may be a bit too easy thereafter.

[Shurrikhan]

(A brief addendum to the last post that is perhaps a little too tangential, relating more to general ideas about raiding instead...)

If the Raid Finder had ever really taken off and seen further improvements with time, instead of dying in its infancy, raiding might be far more appealing to me now in that it would have allowed for content to be tackled in more modular bits with fewer conflicts of interest, perspective, or experience.

Even in the first few weeks of a raid tier and subsequently lower item level, even an entirely blind PuG group might see enrage on its third or fourth pull, but dog forbid someone join an enrage half-static party, lag, and get hit by something simple; the party dismisses, reforms, one of the static's own then does the same only to have the PuG who notes it get kicked, drama intensifies, and the whole party disbands a wasted half-hour later. Worse, the more players drop out of raiding as drama and formation times increasingly overwhelms the fun of the fights themselves, those formation times only get worse which then puts everyone further on edge or forces more mixed groups which will likewise face more conflicts and therefore more drama.

Is there any way -- apart from asking the community to suddenly play more, play more nicely, and to always wait the extra time as needed to find the perfectly appropriate group -- we can make raiding more accessible without any changes to the fights themselves (or, obviously, to any of the jobs beyond their being better balanced as necessary)?

[Shurrikhan]

I already addressed this. It can affect dungeon design, reward structure, job design/balance, etc. Even if I don't partake in the actual content, I can still be affected by it.

Our dungeons are already identical to Mythic+ inspired dungeons except in that XIV's are less creative in their variety of pull sizes and diversity of mobs (via variety in mob strength and the strength of their skills and effects). We're already working from a far, far more constrained base.

If our dungeons were all alike to 1.x's Cutter's Cry, complete with the party being split up at certain points or having to navigate the shifting sand wormholes, that would be an issue. But we never had a dungeon that would uniquely make just a few jobs far stronger than they should be except perhaps the few dungeons where a particular immunity (usually Hallowed Ground, unless a boss is incredibly deadly, in which case the other HG) is perfectly timed to the benefits of speedruns.

Designing for multiple difficulties has only two concerns:

1. Making sure difficulty scales well by not using fixed damage mechanics (e.g. the same %HP regardless of difficulty) or letting issues slide like auto-attacks hitting at the same time as tankbusters (which might just randomly and unavoidably one-shot a tank at higher difficulties) and
2. Making sure no jobs are obligatory for the dungeon's completion or give a huge lead in speed over other compositions.

Those aren't huge constraints and would make no difference to our current dungeon designs. Our dungeons would have to actually be creative -- immensely so -- before it could have any impact on us.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I think BLU should be deleted from the game.

I think BLU needs to be Revamped so that it can be treated more like a regular class and join the others in content without the requirement of Closed Groups.
Or the new BLU only group content.

[Shougun]

I used to a lot of raiding. I still enjoy it, but I dislike how clinical it has become. People rarely raid for fun and instead treat it like a second job. So I don't really bother with it these days. Japan is more successful at raid related content because the community comes together and ensures that fresh blood is brought on board. The EU/NA crowd is typically the opposite, poaching people from different statics and snubbing people who want to learn to raid. Exceptions do exist, of course, but I've yet to encounter a single static that wanted to train players from the ground up. Which is a shame, since more people raiding equals more chance of the development team designing more raid content.

I have similar but probably farther gone feelings about raiding, and it started in WoW lol. I just don't feel like "working" anymore in my gaming format, I understand that there are those who do, but not I.. and to be specific a particular form of that work.. Perhaps the Japanese scene would feel less annoying to get into and out of at will, making it less of a "yeah no thanks" moment, but at least to me just all the hassle and drama that goes into that space it really does, to me, feel like another form of work. It's not worth it to me, and it's not because of lack of skill (not that I'm a god but I can definitely hop in and out of raid content, having done it a few times).

I love hard content, but I just like it when it's both fair and on my own (HUGE souls fan for example, ghost mode mod your witcher 3, etc). As soon as it's with other players though I feel like I'm getting ready for a group school project, which again at least with "west" experience is like... god no teacher just give me an individual assignment lol. This is why I personally love DF and the content DF is allowed to join, it could be moderately challenging (afk, leaving, new, or "you don't pay my sub" players) but it's seldom like doing a group project in school (obviously because most of the harder stuff isn't even accessible lol).

This is probably honestly one of the major reasons why I am so negatively against the Blue Mage direction (though there are a few), heading very clearly towards group project content (which is both fine in that not everything is designed for one person to enjoy, but also sad because I know I'd have loved a real blue mage a lot more than a limited one, and I would have loved a limited but high solo power and focused one a lot more over a group limited one, so what "I'm getting" feels like to me "the worst possible option"). I'm not too shocked some people are enjoying it when they do have a group of friends ready for action, but as someone with the least fixed schedule (and partly because I've no interest in fixing my game schedule to set times) and few consistent friends that also play blue mage- makes the content's better parts (instanced content you've to run very large number of times or sync with the few doing it, fewer as time goes on) basically dead on arrival (the interesting parts at least) if I don't rush when it's hot new content.