AT THIS POINT in World of Warcraft

[Rilifane]

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.

[R041]

....

A lot of people also forget what all of this does for casual players too. It generally makes the experience more enjoyable when it feels like we're on an actual adventure and have no idea what will happen.

People keep bringing up how tryhard players will make it an unenjoyable experience, but what do you expect them to do - Get rid of all of the casual fun just because a few people have managed to calculate the super perfect comp and path? Then they need everyone to execute it exactly as planned? We have just as many tryhards and friction. People just don't run combat content enough to see that. Hell even non-combat content has tryhard salty catbois.

I had a few runs like that, but majority were very chill. Even M runs were chill.

Ultimately though, it still provides more engagement opportunities, and a feeling of exploration. SE fails to grasp that the possibility of failure and confusion is a part of excitement for casuals too.

People don't really watch XIV streams because there's just straight up no variation to anything. It's like re-watching a movie that plays out exactly as you remember it.

They watch WoW because there's a lot of diversity and difference with how they run dungeons, comps, play their class.. None of those are really a thing in XIV. So of course the only reason people would ever watch XIV is when a big variety streamer is doing MSQ. Then we all sit and watch the same old movie together.