Dungeons we need to talk dungeons

[Shurrikhan]

Looking back I don't think casual started being used by players as a skill tier until WoW started getting popular. Before then Casual and Hardcore just indicated the average time a person spent playing the game and meant nothing in regards to player skill.

Yup. Even by the time players with more hours were more commonly intersecting those of fewer hours in Heroic Cata dungeons, the distinction was generally just between various flavors of "knows their stuff" and "needs to practice a fair bit more", rather than a "casual"/"hardcore" distinction.

...I'd posit, though, that even here, in game, the use of either term is far less prevalent than what the forums indicate, largely complement to the many threads blaming this or that change on X or Y group (sometimes reasonably, sometimes as connected only by painful levels of conflation).

One of the things about FFXI though is that a majority of the game's areas were accessible without having to complete the MSQ story lines. For the most part they only needed to be done to specific points if you wanted to unlock specific "endgame" content. This actually when looking at this title and other more recent MMOs to me feels like a better game design choice falling more in line with open world RPGs like Skyrim, Fallout 3/4, Outer Worlds, Biomutant, FFXV, etc where players were free to wander off to poke at optional content in all kinds of difficulties and level ranges then come back to the main story when they wanted to progress it. It didn't feel obligatory to do in order to progress and do anything else.

At the same time, though, it DOES make sense not to be able to, say, get to the other side of Baelsar's Wall until you actually... get through/across Baelsar's Wall, or to Othard before having taken the ship to Othard. As such, I can't say that any of the restrictions the MSQ places on our travel feel excessive. On the contrary, most of them protect our sense of immersion.

Now, would I ideally allow for better marked (and more interesting, cohesive, and involved) side-stories that'd then be separable from the MSQ? Absolutely. Such becomes increasingly beneficial as those story arcs grow older, but they honestly ought to be future-proofed towards from the start.

The stat squish they say will happen in Endwalker will hopefully slow down the power creep.

Hopefully, but unless that's a specific aim, there's no reason to think it'll happen, sadly. Scaling everything down proportionately, for instance, to the smallest ilvl step possible (and perhaps even collapsing some ilvl tiers across ARR) still will not, in itself, combat power creep. They'd need, purely and simply, reduce the rate of increase across those problematic tiers (e.g., 65+ Stormblood, which accelerates rather suddenly, iirc).

[Nyarlha]

Hopefully, but unless that's a specific aim, there's no reason to think it'll happen, sadly. Scaling everything down proportionately, for instance, to the smallest ilvl step possible (and perhaps even collapsing some ilvl tiers across ARR) still will not, in itself, combat power creep. They'd need, purely and simply, reduce the rate of increase across those problematic tiers (e.g., 65+ Stormblood, which accelerates rather suddenly, iirc).

They already stated that with the squish they are going to reduce the stat inflation going between lvl50 and lvl80. Meaning a level 80 players would be less affected by overgearing a lvl50 instance, and that as a consequence some "fights may be longer than what we are used to now". We'll need to wait and see if it reintroduces some mechanics into the CT raids for example.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

I’m a ‘WoW refugee’ and I think it’s a bit more complex than that. Some of those players will want something like Mythic Dungeons, others very much don’t. Personally I’d say the biggest reason for WoW’s decline has been the narrowing down of meaningful content, and alienating large portions of their playerbase that way. The game got less and less fun for casuals. The game got less and less fun for crafters. The game got less and less fun for raiders. There’s not one type of ‘refugee’ from there and what they want from FF14 will be extremely varied too. I just want FF14 to be FF14, I’m not looking for a WoW clone. I love the crazy amount of things one can do here, the first few weeks I went NOOO whenever I’d get more helpful tooltips because it was just overload! Lol

Personally I’m happy Mythic Dungeons type of content most likely won’t be a thing here because I did not enjoy the effects of it, or the attitudes it bred.

Quoting for emphasis. Also a WoW refugee. The things people are asking for have ruined countless other MMO's not just WoW. Overly competitive content just breed toxicity. A side note Im actually concerned about Endwalker "bring more PvP content." The few front lines I have done are one of the only places where I have seen people call out others so negatively and be super toxic. Im really glad you at least can't see the names of enemy team mates.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

You can tell who's played since the beginning and who hasn't by what they ask for. I remember dungeons during HW - when I started playing. No this isn't my starter account. It's just my main account as my starter account was tied to a dead PSN I no longer use. - But the wipes and complaints were ALOT. People complained everything was too hard, people complained classes were overly busy to the point they needed spread sheets, heck, people complained solo instances were too hard. - The one in Stormblood being the biggest one.- So I can see why things got nerfed. Tho I think if they ever wanted to fix the problem then things need to actually hit harder. It'll fix healing, cause now things hit WAY harder. Slow down the ilvl progression so we don't over power things and dungeons, and add more one shot mechs. Doing these things I think will fix most of the issues. Cause just changing the way dungeons look won't do it for long term as players will just find the fastest way to do it and you WILL be shamed if you go against the grain.

If you don't beleive me... it already happens now. Try and go off the path in one of those old dungeons and watch what happens. If chat doesn't instantly go >:O D:??? Or :/ then those people weren't long time players and got lost.

I am probably in an extreme minority in saying the following, but that okay. I don't want the dungeons to be more complicated but I sincerely wish trash would hit much, much harder. I wish it was harder to do big pulls if not impossible. It would solve the problem healers seem to have of being bored in the role they chose to play of their own free will, and players, especially newer players could stop keeping sprint on cooldown and actually remember a little bit what the dungeon they just did actually looks like.

[Garnix]

Quoting for emphasis. Also a WoW refugee. The things people are asking for have ruined countless other MMO's not just WoW. Overly competitive content just breed toxicity. A side note Im actually concerned about Endwalker "bring more PvP content." The few front lines I have done are one of the only places where I have seen people call out others so negatively and be super toxic. Im really glad you at least can't see the names of enemy team mates.

I am probably in an extreme minority in saying the following, but that okay. I don't want the dungeons to be more complicated but I sincerely wish trash would hit much, much harder. I wish it was harder to do big pulls if not impossible. It would solve the problem healers seem to have of being bored in the role they chose to play of their own free will, and players, especially newer players could stop keeping sprint on cooldown and actually remember a little bit what the dungeon they just did actually looks like.

This is exactly why I think dungeons should be treated equally compared to raids and trials.
Have a story mode, and a hard mode. Especially now that there is only one dungeon per patch.
No need for a mythic+ highly competitive system.
Just make things hit a bit harder, remove some telegraphs, add a boss mechanic or two in each dungeon. Done.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

This is exactly why I think dungeons should be treated equally compared to raids and trials.
Have a story mode, and a hard mode. Especially now that there is only one dungeon per patch.
No need for a mythic+ highly competitive system.
Just make things hit a bit harder, remove some telegraphs, add a boss mechanic or two in each dungeon. Done.

I think thats a pretty fine plan. Just a hard mode for existing content. Imagine having to actually use sleep on a mob in a dungeon because if you pull one too many, you wipe. I don't even know what the sleep animation looks like and thats kinda sad.

[DPZ2]

This is exactly why I think dungeons should be treated equally compared to raids and trials.
Have a story mode, and a hard mode. Especially now that there is only one dungeon per patch.
No need for a mythic+ highly competitive system.
Just make things hit a bit harder, remove some telegraphs, add a boss mechanic or two in each dungeon. Done.

"Just make things hit a bit harder" ... this will be the regular rule of order when the Endwalker stat squish occurs. Done.

"Remove some telegraphs" ... too confusing to the player, who expect telegraphs in all content. Or are you saying that the ones you find in, say, fighting Storge in Shadowbringers should be hidden?

"Add a boss mechanic or two" ... the current difference between normal and hard modes in dungeon instances already do that. Note that some (Hard) instances are also story mode instances.

Of course, adding these additional "hard mode" dungeons comes with a cost. It is never as easy as "just add X". One of the disappointments I had with WoW was that all of the additional harder instances came at the cost of their patch cycle. I'd rather have new content come every three to four months than wait a year for the next content patch.

[Nyarlha]

Of course, adding these additional "hard mode" dungeons comes with a cost. It is never as easy as "just add X". One of the disappointments I had with WoW was that all of the additional harder instances came at the cost of their patch cycle. I'd rather have new content come every three to four months than wait a year for the next content patch.

I have to laugh at people thinking "it's fine, they can just add a hard modes for every dungeon" while the patch cycle schedule is already too tight as it is for the team.

[RitsukoSonoda]

"Just make things hit a bit harder" ... this will be the regular rule of order when the Endwalker stat squish occurs. Done.

"Remove some telegraphs" ... too confusing to the player, who expect telegraphs in all content. Or are you saying that the ones you find in, say, fighting Storge in Shadowbringers should be hidden?

"Add a boss mechanic or two" ... the current difference between normal and hard modes in dungeon instances already do that. Note that some (Hard) instances are also story mode instances.

Of course, adding these additional "hard mode" dungeons comes with a cost. It is never as easy as "just add X". One of the disappointments I had with WoW was that all of the additional harder instances came at the cost of their patch cycle. I'd rather have new content come every three to four months than wait a year for the next content patch.

Yeah again I'm interested in how much of an impact the upcoming stat squish will have... Another thought that just came to mind since it seems to effect ilvl climb starting at lv 50. What if this means people will have to actually do mechanics in the CT raids? Or not faceroll every boss/encounter in castrum and prae in a matter of seconds?

There were a few AoE's in the past that weren't telegraphed with a ground marker originally. One example was the front arc and 360 degree swing attacks by cyclops type enemies. However alot of players apparently couldn't see the slowly filling cast bar when it said something like 1000 tonze swing and think to move away from it.

[DPZ2]

There were a few AoE's in the past that weren't telegraphed with a ground marker originally. One example was the front arc and 360 degree swing attacks by cyclops type enemies. However alot of players apparently couldn't see the slowly filling cast bar when it said something like 1000 tonze swing and think to move away from it.

It wasn't so much the cast bar on the cyclops as it was the confusion about "where is the telegraph?". The game mechanics have taught players at all levels of instance that telegraphs signal areas of effect, while cast bars generally announce TKOs for which there is no area of effect. The change in Aurum Vale corrected what I considered to be an anomaly in this 'signaling'.

I'm sure most players will adjust to the new stat squish, however it is created. I remember the changes when HW came out -- those Deepeyes hit a lot harder than similar mobs in ARR (as did all the other mobs, of course) until the gear could begin to accommodate.

At a guess, the days of mass dungeon pulls may be quickly forgotten when 6-9 mobs will kill you because you can't kill them fast enough.