Dungeons we need to talk dungeons

[Artemiz]

I also want to make a point that FFXI is about to celebrate its 20 year anniversary and in large part that game is alive because of how difficult it was, and the bonds the players formed with each other to overcome obstacles and work together.

FFXI is still going thats for sure but even at its peak it was never anywhere near as popular as FFXIV is. Its very different in many ways but in my opinion one of the reasons its still going is the complexity of the gearing and its horizontal gear progression. There is almost always something you need, for one gear set or another.

Also, imagine how many people have quit due to its difficulty level, I've long ago lost count of how many people I knew who quit over farming kitty pants alone.

Almost all of the hardest content is now merc'd, and has been for years now.

[Ath192]

FFXI is still going thats for sure but even at its peak it was never anywhere near as popular as FFXIV is. Its very different in many ways but in my opinion one of the reasons its still going is the complexity of the gearing and its horizontal gear progression. There is almost always something you need, for one gear set or another.

Also, imagine how many people have quit due to its difficulty level, I've long ago lost count of how many people I knew who quit over farming kitty pants alone.

Almost all of the hardest content is now merc'd, and has been for years now.

So complexity of some sort keeps it going by your own admission, even if you disagree where that complexity comes from.

Here are some synonyms from the dictionary:

Synonyms for complexity:
complicacy, complication, convolution, difficulty, intricacy

[Artemiz]

So complexity of some sort keeps it going by your own admission, even if you disagree where that complexity comes from.

Here are some synonyms from the dictionary:

Synonyms for complexity:
complicacy, complication, convolution, difficulty, intricacy

You can play semantics all you want, it doesn't change the fact that this game is easier, more accessible and significantly more popular than FFXI. I've played FFXI for 15 years, I love that game so I'm not knocking it. Its just never been anything like as popular as FFXIV.

[ReynTime]

It's a huge fallacy to assume if players are failing to learn easier content will make them fail less.

There are as many bads or carried players now as there were in 2013. Lowering the bar only makes players who never had issues less engaged.

[HappyHubris]

The solution is to have separate versions of dungeons off roulette with an ilvl cap and tuned to be harder. If you're mostly tweaking numbers, it would not be a massive content investment.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I also want to make a point that FFXI is about to celebrate its 20 year anniversary and in large part that game is alive because of how difficult it was, and the bonds the players formed with each other to overcome obstacles and work together.

IMO it's not the game's difficulty that has kept FFXI alive. It's more that it's an MMO that still has a majority of staple or classic RPG mechanics in it. They took a majority of what you would expect in a single player offline JRPG at that time and made it an MMO. Hence it's style of classic FF Menu based interface. It had that vibe of being an FF game you could play along with your friends. For the most part I'm sure it's had a stable player base the entire time because it also essentially had long term goals players could aim for where as most if not all of the current "top" MMOs have frequent player activity fluctuations due to lulls in content to keep players entertained or active as it generally only takes a few days to finish everything in a content update and then it's just a question of how much they want to repeat the content to obtain loot. This isn't to say FFXI didn't have repetitive content elements either. However the game did offer a number of options for "endgame" gear ranging from crafting, hunting NMs and HNMs, doing side quests, Dynamis, Limbus, etc... For an extremely long time the game kept with a sort of horizontal progression where expansions and updates just gave players more options to play around with gear wise without invalidating the gear the player had already obtained.

[Nect]

I had a lot of fun doing dungeons in the MMO Rift. They had like achievements for killing a boss in a dungeon in a specific manner, like "all pt members must not get hit by a certain attack", or "use this mechanic to bla bla".
I used to attempt those achievements with my friends a lot and it was a blast. Would love to see something like that in this game.

[Shurrikhan]

Here are some synonyms from the dictionary:

Synonyms for complexity:
complicacy, complication, convolution, difficulty, intricacy

Synonyms are rarely interchangeable in any involved context, however, so what is your point exactly?

[Nyarlha]

Time to repost YoshiP's interview from last May.

Naoki Yoshida: I’d like to refrain from giving away too many specifics at this time, but I think the chances of doing large-scale, challenging content is greater than creating high-difficulty content meant for smaller groups. It’s not that we are unable to create high-difficulty content for small groups, but currently I am a bit more hesitant with that direction overall.

In the case of a four-player high-difficulty dungeon, there is much less room for players to work with when it comes to party deaths or mistakes. If even a single party member is incapacitated or makes a mistake, it will invariably lead to a wipe, with not much leeway to save the run or come up with a creative solution. Another major reason is because our community continues to grow—naturally this is bringing in many casual players, and I believe that when looking at the bigger pictures, large-scale content will be easier for all players to get into.

If anything, one possibility might be high-difficulty floor(s) of the Deep Dungeon series… but please stay tuned for future announcements!

[Garnix]

To this day, I still don't really understand this comment from Yoshida.
I think there is a difference between challenging content, and high-difficulty content.
IMO, they can easily make dungeons more challenging without having them be "high difficulty".
They would not even need to be on par with EX trials in terms of difficulty. Something between the current dungeons and EX trials would be fine.
Something where the tank busters actually do damages. Where the boss have some sort of enrage timer. Where pulling big can actually really hurt and where all the flashy new AoE we get can get more meaningful. etc.
It doesn't have to be extremely punishing. It can just be something where you are expected to play at least decently.
That said, yeay to deep dungeon...I guess...