Duty Support has now killed every required ARR to SB dungeon

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah... dont mean bring back HM dungeons exactly as they were before, I ment tougher dungeon, that doesnt follow the usual dungeon layout, with mechanics/puzzles that arent boggled down by Trusts and reuse previous dungeon stages/assets to save on time/development rather something like variant/criterion.

Which I'd really like. But, you then make it so that Dungeon roulettes are about doing what one interestingly can with the dungeon model (a mostly linear string of encounters alternating between series of trash and a boss), rather than just 12-15 minute maximally efficient ways to get tomes outside of Hunts, which is apparently a can of worms?

Less jokingly, I think we could do a lot already by just raising the starting difficulty of each dungeon slightly and/or reducing their minimum item level slightly and then...

1. rewarding Minimum Item Level runs with slightly higher reward efficiency (ideally, based on the additional amount by which ilvl is synced down, so the more stats and thereby speed you'd lose, the greater the reward to match),
2. making Minimum Item Level a choice from the main Duty Finder menu (instead of a being a side-option hidden within an advanced settings menu), such as a second checkbox option right on the contents and roulettes themselves and accessible to/with matchmaking, and
3. allowing players to sign up for multiple Roulettes at a time.

Each of those things above would benefit all content and play while also providing about the same value as a simple scale-up. That's not to say that we can't or shouldn't do scale-ups or multiple difficulties as well, but we may as well start with what is most broadly efficient and effective.

__________

May as well, imo, stick with Hard Mode dungeons having at least a different layout of the original dungeon and the allowance for new bosses and mechanics, with all dungeons just having at least a tiny bit of difficulty at truly minimum item level (which would be well below what most people will have upon that dungeon's release anyways) and the easily accessible option to thereby scale to that.

So long as one is not losing access to gameplay, scaling down has significant advantages over scaling up, in that nonetheless skilled players who are still catching up can bolster the relevant playerbase size, since the dungeon wouldn't be soft-gated behind gear-grinds (instead holding a constant difficulty).

[Payadopa]

Just leveling exp won't be enough. It has to be something worth of value for everyone who maxed out their characters - something like high amounts of gil / tomes / popular renewable currency that can be used anywhere no matter ilvl difficulty.

A fully maxed out player might be doing their roulettes for tomes (and that's the only thing that matters now if you want to farm tomes for relic weapon...) and the side boss gives nothing of value except time wasted for that goal because it becomes "optional".

And yet people join PF groups just to help prog without getting anything tangible out of it. Again, not everyone plays like a robot. Some people play for fun as well. The current jobs and the dungeon design (especially in conjunction) just isn't so people want to spend even less time in them. That's the issue.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Keeper of the Lake's last boss went from a crazy AoE dodgefest to a snoozefest
Castrum Abania's second boss went from the cool elemental mechanic to generic AoE attacks
The Aery's last boss no longer has Estinien's RP
Practically every boss now just jumps back to the center by itself invalidating the tank's role completely

Duty Support has now made every required ARR to SB dungeon a McDonald's hamburger, mass-produced, streamlined, and they all taste the same.

None of these being remotely difficult pre and post change. The only dungeon I could ping as difficult is the start to...what it is Doma Castle? Where if you pull the first mobs with the Giants they hit very hard. That's about it.

More over why are we pretending to care about old dungeons? Most of us aren't running them for fun or anything really. And even more still most of yall care about time, and easier old dungeons means faster times.

[Noumenon]

None of these being remotely difficult pre and post change. The only dungeon I could ping as difficult is the start to...what it is Doma Castle? Where if you pull the first mobs with the Giants they hit very hard. That's about it.

More over why are we pretending to care about old dungeons? Most of us aren't running them for fun or anything really. And even more still most of yall care about time, and easier old dungeons means faster times.

You really haven't learned from your vacation have you? Need another one? If not don't speak for others.

[IkaraGreydancer]

You really haven't learned from your vacation have you? Need another one? If not don't speak for others.

Nice to see folks keeping tabs on me. Kinda weird but hey whatever ticks your clock. In fact my last post was before you probably joined here officially so that tells me you're an alt of someone especially with how you're talking.

Also point me to a sizable group who cares that much about old dungeons. Next it's been documented plenty that much of this playerbase opts for speed over fun. Tanks that's don't pull wall to wall are looked down on because "they're wasting the groups time". Again all documented on this very site. I don't have to say it, it's here.

Also ironic you tell me not to speak for others yet aren't you kinda speaking for OP? You know, the one I actually responded to? Odd...

[Mikey_R]

And yet people join PF groups just to help prog without getting anything tangible out of it. Again, not everyone plays like a robot. Some people play for fun as well. The current jobs and the dungeon design (especially in conjunction) just isn't so people want to spend even less time in them. That's the issue.

It is one thing joining a PF where everyone has the same goal, it is another thing joining a DF party where everyone could potentially have different goals.

If we do go the route of an optional boss that rewards exp, there are a few scenarios, the first is noone needs it, so it is ignored, the second is everyone needs it, might as well go after it. The last is when you have a mix and this is where the grey area comes in. You could say, if majority wants it, they should go after it. However, if the tank doesn't need it, they can force the party to ignore it, you obviously cannot kill the boss without the tank after all, or at least without more complications, which inevitably forces the rest of the party who does want the optional exp to miss out. What if the party is 50/50? Skip or not?

You could even see this behaviour in older dungeons where, as the game got older, people started to skip the optional stuff more and more. Now, it could be argued that the rewards weren't good enough, or not worth going after which is true, but that then comes back to the question of, what reward IS good enough. Even things like tomes or gil isn't going to be enough as different people have different ideas on how much the value that resource and in the end, in the vast majority of cases, people will stop caring about it as they see no value in it once they have everything they need/want from it.

Coming from another angle though, you mention a person willingly going into a PF to help 'for fun'. No reward there, however, in an optional area of a dungeon, someone will only want to do the boss 'for fun' if the boss is itself fun, which is something completely subjective.

[Toutatis]

[*]making Minimum Item Level a choice from the main Duty Finder menu (instead of a being a side-option hidden within an advanced settings menu), such as a second checkbox option right on the contents and roulettes themselves and accessible to/with matchmaking, and.

This would just make queues longer as it would split them. And do you really want to spend more time doing Sastasha and other similar dungeons? That’s all min iLvl would do: make dungeons last longer as there is nothing difficult in there. I don’t want to spend more time killing boring trash in there. (Edit: even at min iLvl , bosses have tank busters that still hit like wet noodles). However, I am not against min iLvl for trials as there’s only a boss in there and the interest is in doing mechanics.

Personally I’d rather wish we’d get more varied fights and mechanics. Atm trash is pretty much all the same from early dungeons to the last ones. You pull them all and you aoe. I wish some packs would have unique mechanics, like some kill order, make and add immune and if you don’t stun/sleep it while you kill the rest your party will get zapped, etc. Criterion dungeon mobs had some interest. It doesn’t need to be as punishing for regular dungeons but it’d be nice if they did something.

Same thing for regular dungeon bosses. We now have most of the time only one boss with a big hitbox and the fight revolves only about moving out of stupid in time requiring no coordination and just minimal observation of the environment. I would like unique and varied mechanics, a boss that spawns a number of adds that have to be killed a certain way or kited, add some traps, some switches to activate at some point, etc. Atm, save for a few exceptions, dungeons mostly feel all the same save for the decor.

Another thing they could use from variant dungeons is the different paths but make it random, not a player choice (because players will chose the fastest and easiest).

[Shurrikhan]

This would just make queues longer as it would split them. And do you really want to spend more time doing Sastasha and other similar dungeons?

You're complaining about something that was effectively solved in the very next sentence from what you quoted (just allowing players to simultaneously queue for multiple roulettes simultaneously, as in most other similar MMOs), and then cherry-picking the first of over 80 dungeons to say that no one would want more difficulty in that content?

And no, minimum item level doesn't just extend the time spent on trash. Have you... never used it? Or noted that relative stat reductions equally affect bosses, allowing their tankbusters to be less akin to wet noodles, failures to actually be punishing, and so forth. Just as it does on Min Ilvl Trials or any other content, which would be permitted under the exact same suggestion:

...i.e., proportionately greater reward under a now-easily-visible, immediately-accessible, matchmakable Minimum Item Level option that can be queued for simultaneously with that content's non-Min Ilvl variant since they'd each be their own thing and you could queue simultaneously even for multiple roulettes as if they were any other specific duty.

Moreover, these things are not mutually exclusive. We can (A) revamp trash to have less health but simultaneously be more threatening or do whatever else we like to improve the dungeons experience... and, separately and independently, (B) make it so players have the option to simply roll right over it all through absurd ilvl ceilings (that then get players miffed when they random a party member that can actually still use gear from that dungeon)...

I would like unique and varied mechanics, a boss that spawns a number of adds that have to be killed a certain way or kited, add some traps, some switches to activate at some point, etc.

Same here, but you're describing additional content work. Which is not mutually exclusive to just allowing proportionate reward to an option for those dungeons to retain their original difficulty levels, whatever that may be.

I'd love to see dungeons that have environmental mechanics, complex and challenging bosses, and so forth, but that's not a modifier that can be easily placed, today, to benefit all the existing dungeons; such would be, instead, new dungeons. That's why my suggestion was framed as it was; it's simply a quick and immediate improvement available for the whole content type that would not get in the way of whatever other future improvements may be feasible.

[Toutatis]

And no, minimum item level doesn't just extend the time spent on trash. Have you... never used it? Or noted that relative stat reductions equally affect bosses, allowing their tankbusters to be less akin to wet noodles, failures to actually be punishing, and so forth. Just as it does on Min Ilvl Trials or any other content, which would be permitted under the exact same suggestion:

Oh I've used it. Regular dungeons are just too easy and tank busters still hit like wet noodles. To me, min Ilvl doesn't add any interest to those dungeons. It just makes fights last longer.

[Shurrikhan]

Oh I've used it. Regular dungeons are just too easy and tank busters still hit like wet noodles. To me, min Ilvl doesn't add any interest to those dungeons. It just makes fights last longer.

I have to somewhat disagree, but maybe the dungeons I've used it on just felt better with it than others. Had I been doing Min Ilvl on the likes of Smileton instead of, say, Pharos Sirius, I'd probably come to a similar impression.



Again, though, I'm all for trying to also apply additional overarching tweaks to dungeons to make them more fun. Reducing trash HP while creating couple dozen or so additional special actions that trash might use to quickly spread across dungeons would go a long way. I'm all for revising the boss fights to give them some additional mechanics or even just triggers to aid pacing (letting downtime phases end early if everyone's already in position or both already in position and healed up). All that can still be done atop game-wide helpful changes.

I pointed out Min Ilvl simply as a feature we have now that we scarcely utilize, both because of how it's hidden away and that, reward-wise, it's purely a loss, instead of being at least competitive (even if only for skilled parties). It's an easy fix that could benefit the whole game.