Dungeons are becoming style over substance.

[Jirah]

For everyone that find the 80s to be boring and routine I highly recommend do any pick-n-mix of any dungeon 50-70 on Minilv (minimum item level) as well as silence echo. The effects of such do the following:

1.) Make mobs do more damage. No more W2W bull since the mobs are a actual threat now, and healers are dragged back down to hell and are forced to heal, can’t kill them in time if your healer mana runs out. Tough

2.) You see all of every Bosses mechanics. All roulettes that suffer from power creep have the worst side effect of burning thru most of the mechanics of a boss. Now you see them all and have to act accordingly rather than ignore it. Only applies to dungeons that have more than 2 mechs a fight so most of the 80s won’t be better if it’s minilv

minilv suggestions are: Wanderers palace, Pharos Sirius, Temple of the fist, Lost City of Ampdapor, Fractal continuum, The Preatorium, Cape Westwind, Keeper of the lake, Tam-Taru Deepcroft HM, Sunken Temple HM, Antitower ect

Though Pharos Sirus is probably the hardest I ever wanna see a dungeon be considering the first two bosses on a minilv.

[Floortank]

I don't want 30 minute dungeon runs for my weekly tomestones.

[Lunalepsy]

For all the hate levied against FF13 in much of the playerbase, it sure is interesting how people are just eating current dungeon designs up.

Dungeons have become linear corridors where the trash are meaningless and mechanics are regurgitated over and over again. There are always a few flourishes that make the dungeon feel exciting and fresh, but these are always visual: the whale ride in Anyder; the dragon ride in Pagl'than; the vibrant colors in the lava cave in Matoya's Relict. None of these are gameplay elements.

I think people have forgotten what ARR dungeons were like. While they were often drab affairs, you can't deny that the developers were trying their best to be creative, whether it hits or misses. In the Wanderer's Palace you have a Tonberry that chases you, which with low gear and mediocre players actually poses a significant threat even during trash packs. Dzemael Darkhold had an entire corridor where there is interaction with the environment - staying in the blue regions protected you from Eyes on Me and tanks pulled the mobs and the boss into those zones. Snowcloak has the Yeti which took forever unless you froze snowballs and allow them to grow bigger and hit it into the Yeti. In Hullbreaker Isle, when facing the Kraken you'd want to drop tornados onto different platforms away from the party, and the tank should face the tentacles away from the party too. In Brayflox's Longstop HM's final boss, you should repel the bombs away to the edge to prevent them from exploding on you. All these mechanics were fresh for most people at the time.

Compare this to ShB dungeons. I'll just use the latest two dungeons as examples. Both are of course complete corridors - Matoya's Relict simply exchanges a completely linear corridors layout with a teleporter... that hardly shakes up the formula. Wanderer's Palace had a section where the path forward is ambiguous especially for newer players, despite it being essentially linear too. That is because the Tonberries chase you around and wander around, blocking up paths and opening up others. Even a minor tweak like that makes the dungeon feel much less like a corridor. The bosses in Pagl'than and Matoya's Relict also don't have any interesting mechanics at all. Lunar Bahamut is essentially a fight with mechanics that everyone has seen: divebombs, stack markers, and shrinking AoEs. About the only interesting boss mechanic in the entire dungeon is dropping off lightning on a lamppost, which you've already seen in The Aery. Matoya's Relict is also pretty dull with respect to boss mechanics. Something damning too is the fact that Drippy's water hole mechanic has been repeated over and over again recently, with the very same mechanic occuring in the very next dungeon's... second boss as well. I found that the only interesting mechanic was killing the wind sprite and bursting up into the air to see in which direction the pig was blowing for the last boss.

Modern dungeons suffer from a style over substance design philosophy but they also seem to be implemented in a way where there is almost little to no danger of wiping even when everyone is fresh to the fight. The mechanics are just that easy to figure out. Compare this to City of Amdapor's last boss, wherein you need to open two doors of the same type to dodge the boss's ultimate attack. While it's skippable now, on release it provided a major challenge to average players and people have to come together to explain and figure out the fight together. Don't get me wrong, the dungeons in ARR aren't actually difficult. But they feel different from each other because of the little gameplay twists here and there, and the mechanics are punishing enough to still cause more wipes than "Expert" dungeons do these days.

I think SE is gravely wrong about turning dungeons into a pure vehicle for delivering the story, rather than an interesting encounter in and of itself. The reason why people don't care about the reduction to the number of dungeons is because they've all become samey, boring, and unchallenging since Stormblood, and beneath the paint they're all pretty much just corridors with trivial boss fights. It's kinda sad that the justification of quality over quantity is only reified on the aesthetic side. Dungeon gameplay has gotten progressively blander and blander. Cinematic dungeons are only fun the first time round. Dungeons that have a strong gameplay element will have more longevity than the current cinematic experiences. In ARR, people found dungeons a chore as well, but I can say without rose-colored lenses that current dungeons are not only a chore but something j actively avoid doing these days. I have more fun revisiting ARR dungeons on alts than doing Expert dungeons for the first time.

I'm not going to go into Mythic+ but were Square Enix to go back to ARR design for gameplay with ShB quality aesthetics when it comes to dungeons, they can easily add a popular side content that will have longevity through an entire patch. It's certainly in their financial interests to amp up the gameplay of these dungeons too.

Welcome to theme park MMOs!

[Shurrikhan]

I don't want 30 minute dungeon runs for my weekly tomestones.

Even if they gave 30 minutes' worth of tomestones (i.e., some 50%-100% more than current dungeons do at their typical 15-20 minute completion times)?

Personally, I'd rather do an actual dungeon than a hallway sprinting simulator, especially if I didn't have to do as many per week.

[Floortank]

Personally, I'd rather do an actual dungeon than a hallway sprinting simulator, especially if I didn't have to do as many per week.

I do my rotations, AOE and single target, while you sprint down hallways, and I enjoy it. I actually enjoy playing the game as-is. If they gave extra tomestones to compensate, sure I'd like to do longer dungeons, but they're not gonna slow down queues or increase player frustration from upping the difficulty on regular content.

[Shurrikhan]

but they're not gonna slow down queues or increase player frustration from upping the difficulty on regular content.

Indeed, since "upping the difficulty on regular content" would have a long way to go before it'd amount to slowed queues or a net increase to player frustration.

[FrogDog]

Dungeons are my bread and butter in any MMO I play, but they do suck in XIV. It's ironic, this game is so PvE focused but outside of the boss arena extreme trials and savage raids the PvE content is an absolute joke. We get no hard dungeons or alliance raids, or achievements with specific requirements that might change how you do battles.

It's all very scripted and static and after years of this dungeon design I'm really sick of it.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Dungeons are my bread and butter in any MMO I play, but they do suck in XIV. It's ironic, this game is so PvE focused but outside of the boss arena extreme trials and savage raids, the PvE content is an absolute joke. We get no hard dungeons or alliance raids, or achievements with specific requirements that might change how you do battles.

It's all very scripted and static and after years of this dungeon design I'm really sick of it.

Agreed. I’m kind of tired of seeing people giving the excuse of, “oh this is how a theme park mmo is,” Like no. Even the older dungeons are at least somewhat better than some of the recent ones are. The recent expert dungeons are nothing but a joke. Mob packs melt incredibly fast and bosses have very little in the way of engaging mechanics. Not only that, but i’m tired of dungeons having undyable gear or reused gear. We’re going on the 4th expansion now. We shouldn’t still be seeing undyable gear or reused gear anymore especially with all the funding and new player increase we’ve seen as of late. Tired of all the excuses

[Kolsykol]

The dungeons are great on a visual level imo, the problem is that they're too easy.

Part of that is because we're overgeared into oblivion, same goes with old dungeons and raid content too.
But dungeons should still not be as easy as they are currently, obviously they're going to be easy when you know the fight and you've done them countless of times but it's at the point where new players don't even get to see the mechanics at all or just see half.

[Velnora]

I do my rotations, AOE and single target, while you sprint down hallways, and I enjoy it. I actually enjoy playing the game as-is. If they gave extra tomestones to compensate, sure I'd like to do longer dungeons, but they're not gonna slow down queues or increase player frustration from upping the difficulty on regular content.

There are multiple methods to acquire tomestones. Content should not be relegated to simply just farming tomes. If the only reason you are doing the content is to get tomestones, then the content is shit.

It's getting to the point in this game where they just slap on rewards to entice people to do something. It's uninspiring and lazy game design. Remove roulette rewards? See how many people still queue. Not have a relic to grind for in Bozja? See how many people actually hang around in Bozja.