Why can't Dungeons be longer/harder, but more... piecework?

[monk-dps]

This is the wrong way to look at it. What actually happened was that many were happy, but others were not. Those who weren't were vocal, perhaps because they were the majority. The fix is simple, let them avoid the duty. This is why Savage works. It doesn't exist in roulettes, it's up to the player to take part.


Constant threads like this show the opposite. There is a clear demand for harder content. It just needs to be added in a way that doesn't interfere with players who are looking for a more casual experience.


The trial also received praise for those very same things.


This does help with the challenge aspect, although your ability to solo will vary drastically based on what class you play (or can play). It also means you're not playing in a group setting, which is one of the appeals of a MMO.


Or that there are issues with it, like excluding cooperative play and limiting class viability.


If deep dungeons were the answer, this thread wouldn't exist. You're oversimplifying things way too much, maybe because the type of content being asked for doesn't interest you. That's completely fine, but if you think one piece of difficulty content is equivalent to any other and the details don't matter, you can't really tell me that what I want is already in the game. It's not.

Rath was shunned by an overly large bit of the playerbase for being - unfair- and other things when Rath was literally everything people apparently have been asking for. And yet hardly anyone did it and those that did it was like pulling teeth. Hell more people do it now siply because they can unsync it. Making the point of it pointless. And while you may want this stuff, the fact we have a very easy mode in the easiest part of the game - cause apparently people couldn't beat THOSE and yes... complained about it here - proves my point. Maybe I am oversimplifying it.. but I don't see why I shouldn't. Time and time again people ask for things to be harder and when SE DOES give us something the overall playerbase cries and complains until it's nerf. Have SE gotten better about not doing this .. yes. but the damage is already done. Hell asking for more dungeons when we only get 1 dungeon per patch now is funny.. they aren't making more.. they are making less.


What should be being asked isn't harder dungeons... but fixes and systems to make the over all playerbase BETTER so we can get harder content in the mainline of the game. Because as long as the playerbase sucks it'll never be a gain to make things harder. Ultimate doesn't count cause that is using old assets and if they had to make new ones it wouldn't be here. The reaosn we have it is because it's not extra work. - Even tho even THAT was limited once upon a time. go firgure....-

[Shurrikhan]

Rath was shunned by an overly large bit of the playerbase for being - unfair- and other things when Rath was literally everything people apparently have been asking for.

...Which people? I don't remember anyone saying they wanted healing to be literally prohibited, or even more early-snapshotted, poorly-telegraphed stun AoEs that can potentially chain into each other. I don't remember anyone asking for another literally circular space with a boss whose position cannot be controlled.

It didn't rely on AoE indicators, wasn't quite as scripted, and healers couldn't fully make up for player mistakes, so those are potential wins, but... they were each done in a way that didn't really seem to answer even those relatively niche requests. And there are whole threads of requests besides that saw nothing from Rathalos. So how it could possibly be everything people have been asking for?



There's a vast difference between giving something vaguely in the direction requested and giving something as requested. It takes many layers of over-generalization to conflate the two.

Yes, the playerbase could do far more to make its preferences specific, but when the playerbase says "throw me the ball," and the devs, being blind to their precise position, throw it way the heck past them or painfully short of them, no amount of insisting that the players should be happy with that poor throw will make them so.

What should be being asked isn't harder dungeons... but fixes and systems to make the over all playerbase BETTER so we can get harder content in the mainline of the game.

The two aren't mutually exclusive; in fact, they're probably best discussed together, but that would leave us with a thread too sprawling for players to easily contribute to it or anyone to make sense of it.

I've been largely focused on improvements to scaffolding, UI intuitiveness, control schemes to allow for more responsive healing (especially on controller), and in-game learning systems since late ARR. Sadly, most of those were met with similar criticisms of "We already have that" while pointing at something at only remotely reminiscent of the suggestions or "What point is there in making players better when content is so easy?"

[Lastelli]

Rath was shunned by an overly large bit of the playerbase for being - unfair- and other things when Rath was literally everything people apparently have been asking for. And yet hardly anyone did it and those that did it was like pulling teeth.

Rath was terrible, not because it was unfair (it was pretty easy) but because it was a mechanical mess given this game structure: healers were basically useless, the hitbox was extremely imprecise, there was virtually no reason to bring a dps when it released and finally it was the same few telegraphed mechanics throughout the fight. When did people ask for something like this? It was something relatively new, sure, bad it wasn't good content. It was just fanservice for mh fans.

[monk-dps]

Rath was terrible, not because it was unfair (it was pretty easy) but because it was a mechanical mess given this game structure: healers were basically useless, the hitbox was extremely imprecise, there was virtually no reason to bring a dps when it released and finally it was the same few telegraphed mechanics throughout the fight. When did people ask for something like this? It was something relatively new, sure, bad it wasn't good content. It was just fanservice for mh fans.

It wasn't terrible, It literally gave people a start of a 4 man extreme which people asked for, it gave random mechs within the fight, it had a different structure and a few other things in there. It was a start. The bigger issue here is people wanting everything handed to them instead of learning things and growing. It's why we have a very easy mode in solo msq fights, which people apparently couldn't do. I know you remember those threads of people dying in solo msq fights. This thread is asking for harder dungeons but they aren't adding more dungeons we're getting less. I feel like the bigger issue is not the dungeons, but the playerbase as a whole not wanting to get better at anything so we have to deal with baby dungeons. Long of the short of it, I still say we need to ask for better systems first to make the playerbase better otherwise it'll just be a waste. Look at everything that was nerfed or the 2k thread if you don't believe me.

[Shurrikhan]

It wasn't terrible, It literally gave people a start of a 4 man extreme which people asked for, it gave random mechs within the fight, it had a different structure and a few other things in there. It was a start. The bigger issue here is people wanting everything handed to them instead of learning things and growing. It's why we have a very easy mode in solo msq fights, which people apparently couldn't do. I know you remember those threads of people dying in solo msq fights. This thread is asking for harder dungeons but they aren't adding more dungeons we're getting less. I feel like the bigger issue is not the dungeons, but the playerbase as a whole not wanting to get better at anything so we have to deal with baby dungeons. Long of the short of it, I still say we need to ask for better systems first to make the playerbase better otherwise it'll just be a waste. Look at everything that was nerfed or the 2k thread if you don't believe me.

How is any "start" going to be "everything"? How are those who wanted a 4-man extreme trial... everyone? How are just a few AoEs repeated in mostly random order so different from a few AoEs repeated in non-random, but nonetheless varied, order? How is the perfectly circular structure in which we fight Rathalos different from the perfectly circular structure in which we fight so many others? How is the phase-structure of the fight itself so different from other trials, save in that it is simpler (having fewer distinct phases overall)? How is not understanding the objectives of the fight (such as needing to kite Zenos until having survived for a sufficient, not-listed, time) or underestimating its dependence on gimmicks (such as in the Thancred vs. Ranjit) the same thing as needing as few mechanics, distinct phases, or party play as possible? You've badly conflated each of these.

And, again, if the bottleneck is the playerbase, then perhaps you could make suggestions towards the game's improving said playerbase? Without allowing for those suggestions, let alone providing any of your own, you're not just insisting that improvements to the playerbase are needed first, but that improvements to the playerbase are not feasible and therefore anything more than "baby" content is not feasible. They don't need to be wholly detailed or concrete, but there should at least be a span of improvements you think, given the right implementations, are possible and a smaller set you think are likely. Yours and others' opinions on which improvements are even remotely possible, and which are likely, can then guide discussion here and in any other thread that dares to suggest or care about anything beyond the lowest common denominator.

Simply precluding whatever you are not particularly fond of as not currently viable does nothing to aid discussion unless those suggestions are meant to be thrown into the game in the near future. There is no such implication here. This thread is equal parts discussion on future-proofing via reward systems, which gameplay loops we enjoy or at least chuckle kindly at, and what we want to see from experimental content. None of that is immediately deployable. Little of that is even concrete and/or packaged. There are suggestions that may threaten your preferences in the game, but this is about as far from that as possible.

I apologize if I come off as hostile to you; that is not my intent. But, just as much as the playerbase could make use of steady reasons to improve, so perhaps can how we communicate on the forums. There is an important place for determining useful scope on any thread, but to insist that a bottleneck not only be addressed, but dealt with, before we even discuss what we might want to use those fixes for, denies anyone the ability to progress topics in which they have the most to contribute. It's like purposely refusing to switch between tasks even when one hits a bog and could be helped by another's progress.

Throw us a rope here. Let's address the issue of the playerbase, sure, but let's also make some allowance for how those fixes might play out and how we can make use of them.