Dungeons we need to talk dungeons

[Jirah]

It does end though, there needs to be balance. Anything that makes the DPS feel good for blowing through is going to reduce the stress on the tanks or healers, by increasing that difficulty you are going to make it feel like the DPS aren't doing anything. There's only so much you can do with trash mobs. The final boss of Baelsar's Wall is a good show of mechanics that need to be done and can't be ignored, and we have had those too in ShB. All the final bosses of ShB dungeons have mechanics you have to watch for and do to ensure success or you /will/ wipe. Lunar Bahamut is on par with that boss. The main issue here, which I already admitted, is that these dungeons tend to be balanced around an ilvl that is lower than what most already have so we go into it over gearing it. If that is fixed than there should be no problem.

As for the add changes you mentioned. Everyone avoided Aurum Vale like the plague during ARR, trying to find a tank willing to do that place was a nightmare. And the Wanderer's Palace Tonberry thing was reduced to a minor annoyance at best by someone discovering the optimal route and everyone following it. If you didn't follow it, then you were generally kicked. This is the problems with doing stuff that isn't related to bosses. Unless it is done for ALL the dungeons in a similar way it will be avoided or shortened within a week by the player base. At which point... why should the devs bother if it isn't going to do what is being asked for?

I have never once wiped in a SHB dungeon, died yes but you can bounce back with such ease it’s hardly noticeable, I see a lot of praise for Aurum Vale on here so idk what to tell you, I wouldn’t call it universally panned like Westwind. I also don’t buy into the “best optimal route or kicked” argument as I’ve played with plenty of healers and tanks doing minimal pulls, being how easy as it is it was hella boring but never once kicked them despite not doing what is optimal. and most of its hate is all hype anyways, beat it first try, tanking was a learning stretch because I was so used to W2W which isn’t very fun, and is very standard due to how little of a threat mobs do. Also don’t like the defeatist attitude of “why should the devs care?” As the game has tons of arguments for that, why SHOULD the devs care about raids, it’s all gonna be gone on the next patch cycle anyways. Still unconvinced of the stagnate approach for dungeons

[Jirah]

Time. The players lose time when things are added to dungeons. You can't add more mech and variables to dungeons without increasing the rewards they offer. You are overestimating the replay and novelty factors of dungeons.

Furthermore, most player's time can be split into doing the content they want to participate in, and content they have to do in order to participate in their preferred content. IOW, fun stuff, and choir stuff. Dungeons for the majority of players, fall into the latter category.

This does not mean that dungeons can't at least have some random elements added to them. It would be interesting if when you go into a dungeon, you are not sure what bosses you're going to get, or what mechanics they are going to use. Obviously, there are limits to that, but this alone would add to the fun and replay factors. I would rather get one dungeon every other patch that was designed in this fashion than get 3 dungeons in a single patch, that basically just reskin every other dungeon in existence since 4.0.

I spent 70 min clearing Pharos on minivl, and it was a blast! I get people love the idea of FF14 being kind with your time, but ultimately it’s a video game, a time waster and if that’s the case why bother with content at all, 24 man, solo instances ect. Novelty? Blue mage is a novelty, I ain’t saying dungeons are the cream of the crop content but at least respect it enough to add variances. If mandatory is a issue then ease it up on the patch dungeons and make Hard modes again? If you want to pursue the new dungeon it’s 100% optional, and no roulette requirements don’t count you can just as easily cap out doing maps for 20 min

[Gemina]

I spent 70 min clearing Pharos on minivl, and it was a blast! I get people love the idea of FF14 being kind with your time, but ultimately it’s a video game, a time waster and if that’s the case why bother with content at all, 24 man, solo instances ect. Novelty? Blue mage is a novelty, I ain’t saying dungeons are the cream of the crop content but at least respect it enough to add variances. If mandatory is a issue then ease it up on the patch dungeons and make Hard modes again? If you want to pursue the new dungeon it’s 100% optional, and no roulette requirements don’t count you can just as easily cap out doing maps for 20 min

That's not quite where I was going with time expenditure. It's dismissive to say, "It's a time waster. Why bother with content at all?" It also doesn't help get your point across. Whether we have more time on our hands than we know what to do with, or we deprive ourselves of sleep to get in more time; the time people spend playing FFXIV is paid for. That is what has to be respected. No one's time is more valuable than the next player. We all pay the same price for access, retainers, optional items, etc.

SE dev team has to deliberate on what goes into the game. Everything is finite. There is likely at least one or two peeps over there who have tossed ideas involving dungeons, and were shot down. Less and less time being spent developing dungeons is indicative that they are falling in popularity. They could try to invigorate and revive the content, but there isn't enough of a demand for it. And because resources and time are finite, players don't want to see the devs allocate it towards something they never asked for, while the content that is in demand suffers.

Things are never as simple as they seem when it comes to game development. It is very easy to just sprint by something that took them months to do.

[Jirah]

That's not quite where I was going with time expenditure. It's dismissive to say, "It's a time waster. Why bother with content at all?" It also doesn't help get your point across. Whether we have more time on our hands than we know what to do with, or we deprive ourselves of sleep to get in more time; the time people spend playing FFXIV is paid for. That is what has to be respected. No one's time is more valuable than the next player. We all pay the same price for access, retainers, optional items, etc.

SE dev team has to deliberate on what goes into the game. Everything is finite. There is likely at least one or two peeps over there who have tossed ideas involving dungeons, and were shot down. Less and less time being spent developing dungeons is indicative that they are falling in popularity. They could try to invigorate and revive the content, but there isn't enough of a demand for it. And because resources and time are finite, players don't want to see the devs allocate it towards something they never asked for, while the content that is in demand suffers.

Things are never as simple as they seem when it comes to game development. It is very easy to just sprint by something that took them months to do.

They are falling in popularity because of the stagnate approach to designing them, if they had any notable moments they would be more memorable. They are becoming what fates are, there without a care.

I don’t buy into the “time is valuable and has to be respected” argument as the game has plenty of pointless fodder we do that doesn’t exactly align with this principle. Besides this its a few minutes not a whole hour, I think it’s more exaggeration that boggles the opposition on this. Dungeons will never be that much of time commitment to even be near the argument of “time respect” the longer ones doesn’t even take 20 min and you can opt out at anytime with a small 30 min penalty anyways. The longest content are 24 man or HC content that requires trial and error.

[ReynTime]

The time argument is always awful. You're essentially saying the content is badly designed. Because content that is so not engaging that you just want to have the least amount of time possible dedicated to it, is objectively bad content.
You think adds/trash are boring -> Combat of the game is badly designed. Good designed combat doesn't rely almost entirely on specific boss fights to be fun.
You think dungeons are just a chore players shouldn't spend more time on -> Dungeon design is terrible. Good dungeon design makes you not feel like you're "wasting time" by playing through it.

Maybe it's time to admit most of you think the pve content in the game outside the high-end raids is poorly designed.

[Steelbreaker25]

The time argument is always awful. You're essentially saying the content is badly designed. Because content that is so not engaging that you just want to have the least amount of time possible dedicated to it, is objectively bad content.
You think adds/trash are boring -> Combat of the game is badly designed. Good designed combat doesn't rely almost entirely on specific boss fights to be fun.
You think dungeons are just a chore players shouldn't spend more time on -> Dungeon design is terrible. Good dungeon design makes you not feel like you're "wasting time" by playing through it.

Maybe it's time to admit most of you think the pve content in the game outside the high-end raids is poorly designed.

Maybe stop putting words in other peoples' mouths.

[FoxyAreku]

I think it's pretty unacceptable that we've been getting less and less dungeons each expansion and they aren't even any different. They still follow the same copy and paste formula, no alternate paths, no creativity at all in them. If you're gonna give us less and less, at least make the ones we do get unique.

[Gemina]

They are falling in popularity because of the stagnate approach to designing them, if they had any notable moments they would be more memorable. They are becoming what fates are, there without a care.

I don’t buy into the “time is valuable and has to be respected” argument as the game has plenty of pointless fodder we do that doesn’t exactly align with this principle. Besides this its a few minutes not a whole hour, I think it’s more exaggeration that boggles the opposition on this. Dungeons will never be that much of time commitment to even be near the argument of “time respect” the longer ones doesn’t even take 20 min and you can opt out at anytime with a small 30 min penalty anyways. The longest content are 24 man or HC content that requires trial and error.

No. They have fallen in popularity because most players don't care for them. Just like FATEs. People will still do dungeons though because they are a rich source of exp, tomes, glamour options, plus they drop music, minions, and TT cards.

I wouldn't dismiss the time argument unless you're willing to do the same with your own time. You're also not factoring dev time. Dungeons take a long time to develop, even in their reskin versions that we see today. There is no way for the devs to allocate more time to making dungeons to your liking without other content suffering. And like I said, most players don't give a crap about dungeons. They are road blocks in the way of them getting to where they want to be. The devs deciding to allocate time on content that isn't desired would at best be a poor decision.

[LaylaTsarra]

I cap my main and alts doing A rank hunts trains. Dungeons are a waste of time relative to earning tomes for gear. I think SE recognizes the lack of user interest and has adjusted accordingly with other content.

[Roeshel]

I think it's pretty unacceptable that we've been getting less and less dungeons each expansion and they aren't even any different. They still follow the same copy and paste formula, no alternate paths, no creativity at all in them. If you're gonna give us less and less, at least make the ones we do get unique.

Mt. Gulg is the best dungeon with the largest pull possible in the entire game and it's awesome to do it with WAR. That is a quality upgrade for me.

Having different paths like in The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak is awful. You just run across 1-2 mobs and some random chests. That's not creativity, it is waste of time.

The mechanics of the Shb dungeon bosses are far more interesting than those of the dungeons from previous expansions.