Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent. 2.0

[RobynDaBank]

That's the one with the orb keys, right? I know they removed a lot of the ground AoEs that were present in one part of the dungeon but I might be mistaking toto-rak for the dungeon that has the FFX style orbs and pedestals assuming they are two different dungeons, lol.

The dungeon with orbs and pedestals is Sunken Temple of Quarn (Hard). Old Totorak had branching routes in the first bit, lots of packs that poisoned in the second, and Leaden pop-able obstacles in the third (with spider web walls). Honestly it may have been a maze the first time around but you can just open the map and use one route 99.9% of the time. NM Sunken Temple is admittedly less of a hallway.

[Raoabolic]

The dungeon with orbs and pedestals is Sunken Temple of Quarn (Hard). Old Totorak had branching routes in the first bit, lots of packs that poisoned in the second, and Leaden pop-able obstacles in the third (with spider web walls). Honestly it may have been a maze the first time around but you can just open the map and use one route 99.9% of the time. NM Sunken Temple is admittedly less of a hallway.

I was thinking about old Toto-Rak then. While it's true that there is an optimized route that most parties use to clear as fast as they can, you have to admit a new player who was getting into the game back in the day was surprised about how involved the dungeon was compared to older style dungeons in other games during that era. Now it seems so sterile but considering the game feels very sterile now I guess it does make sense.

[Nizzi]

I was thinking about old Toto-Rak then. While it's true that there is an optimized route that most parties use to clear as fast as they can, you have to admit a new player who was getting into the game back in the day was surprised about how involved the dungeon was compared to older style dungeons in other games during that era. Now it seems so sterile but considering the game feels very sterile now I guess it does make sense.

FF13 - universally panned for being a "hallway simulator"
FF14 - universally praised, dungeons are hallway simulators

Make it make sense!

[TheMightyMollusk]

FF13 - universally panned for being a "hallway simulator"
FF14 - universally praised, dungeons are hallway simulators

Make it make sense!

FF13 - Single-player game where you're only expected to go through those hallways once.
FF14 - MMO where you're expected to run those hallways repeatedly in daily roulette form.

It's (arguably) more acceptable here because after the first couple of runs, most people just want to get their roulette rewards and get it over with.

[Packetdancer]

Wasn't Totorak a hallway before though?

No, Toto-Rak was about seven hallways before, or eleventy-three different hallways if you go back to 1.x.

It's (arguably) more acceptable here because after the first couple of runs, most people just want to get their roulette rewards and get it over with.

Plus when they have given us dungeons with side-paths and optional things to do, the community rapidly decides to ignore them and take the 'optimal' path. We will start pulling mobs and pull them until the dungeon forces us to stop, ignoring any optional goals or side pathways. How often does anyone take a side path that leads to a treasure chest in Halitali or Brayflox Hard? How often do people even bother to go into all the side rooms of Haukke Manor? Heck, I know people who have been playing for literal years who still don't have the achievement for getting the full Haukke Manor map, because they've never gone into the upstairs side rooms.

(This isn't unique to current-FFXIV, mind you; I am fairly sure I remember people trying to optimize Toto-Rak to the bare minimum necessary to get all three diremites in 1.x. But I have a lot of unresolved gamer PTSD from that incarnation of the game, and I may be misremembering.)

So, given that any time they give us multiple options we will try to figure out the single most efficient way to run things in the shortest time possible and then try to make that the cultural standard to follow, I cannot say that I am surprised they would decide that was clearly the sort of dungeon design we want: a long hallway with two clusters of enemies to pull, a wall, two more clusters of enemies to pull, and a boss... repeat that three times, and call it good.