Every dungeon should be a Variant Dungeon

[Ath192]

This sounds good on paper, and I wanna say I'd be on board with it, but exploratory content in regular dungeons has never worked well in this game. When was the last time you freed the maidens in Sastasha? When was the last time you saw the pirates break into a fight in that one side room? When was the last time you visited all the side rooms in Qarn using all the stones? When was the last time you opened the secret room at the end of the dungeon? When was the last time you opened the side rooms in Haukke Manor? Toto-Rak used to have different routes, but every just tried to rush through it ASAP. People usually just don't care. I think story dungeons are fine as they are, but I think that not only should we start having at least one Variant Dungeon every patch, but that Hard Mode dungeons should make a come back as well. And they should make them the content you run to get purple armor you upgrade every patch, instead of throwing away your Blue gear every patch.

I will counter with one key difference between Variants and the scenarios you mentioned. Choices and variety in Variants cause progression, whereas the examples you quoted do not, are easily ignored, and can be bulldozed through. You would free the maidens in Sastasha if you had to in order to progress, in an alternative version of the dungeon the room is vacant and you need to trigger the fight in the side room by some clever way in order to move forward.

As such, by creating variables that cannot be ignored the experience stays fresher for much longer than static routes.