Quote Originally Posted by rainichan View Post
I played WoW at least a decade ago so I know their dungeons have many differing paths, but that still doesn't solve the XIV problem of "no one runs the alternate paths anyway so why have them" problem that the devs have put themselves into. They could go the WoW path and put extra bosses and such behind alternate paths, but this community wouldn't care unless it's day 1 and you want the map achieve, or there's other rare stuff in those boxes (though they'll not care once they have them). I'm not against more variety in dungeons beyond "have an extra pack to pull, as a little treat" like we currently have, but most things just... wouldn't work because of what I mentioned in the post you quoted.
You didn't understand my point, I think.
The point is, the WoW dungeons are fun due to variety on many levels that keep them interesting, engaging, fresh and varied. That is why people are currently still happily do old dungeons for leveling, that is why people happily do full runs instead of skipskipskip everything (despite being accused of doing that, ironically). FFXIV is creatively bankrupt with dungeons. They are stale and sterile. They are designed to be efficient, fast chores that give minimal resistance so everyone can roflstomp through them quickly, grab their reward and leave them.
Blizzard certainly doesn't always hit the spot when they add special gimicks to a dungeon or with dungeon design in general but they sure as hell aren't afraid to try new things to keep it fresh and fun. Same with layouts, pathes and general size of a dungeon. There are a few dungeons people hate, myself included, like Gnomeregan but the majority are fun to run through.

With things like extras, it's mostly poor placement from SE.
If a group has to put in extra effort to skip even if it would be more efficient to do so or just do a full run that's less efficient but more fun, the choices are more balanced. But if you have to go out of your way to grab a chest in a room that gives nothing put a potion and some gil, then how are the choices even remotely balanced? How can you seriously expect all players to go for the potion locked behind one extra trash pack and a ton of walking?
Dungeons and achievements is something they've always done generally well on even during their worst expansions and FFXIV could learn a lot from it.

And I didn't mean you with the nostalgia, just forgot to quote the guy who claimed that anyone defending anything about WoW or let alone enjoy is blinded by nostalgia.