For all those complaining about stale dungeons: from a beta player perspective

[Jeeqbit]

I keep seeing people complaining about how dungeons are just one long hallway in the same format over and over

I don't think that is necessarily an issue. I think most people just can't articulate the actual problems they have. They want the enemies and the process of traveling through the dungeon to be interesting and create a varied experience each time. I think the issue is really that they did this via variant dungeons instead, a type of content you'll do then never touch it again because it has no roulette.

Its because speed runners looking for quick clears SKIPPED exploring the dungeon.

Agreed. People could go exploring through Sastasha but it's not as if they do. If anyone reading this is unaware Sastasha isn't just a hallway, you just proved my point. Players treat it as such so much that you come to think it is just a hallway anyway.

Another thing speedrunners caused was walls to be added. You can still see proof of this by entering each ARR dungeon in sequence. Eventually, you will notice a change where you can only pull 2-3 packs in most cases. This is because of examples like Snowcloak, where tanks tried pulling an insane amount of enemies all at once when the healer hadn't even barely moved yet, wiped, then immediately abandoned the duty. I saw this so many times in Snowcloak, and ironically it was the tank's fault but I doubt they saw it that way. Pulls like this are easier than they used to be, so you can't compare now to back then ie. PLD had no AoE, some of our dps stats weren't dps stats, potency was different.

I remember when some pulls in Darkhold could be dangerous but it was fun to try and get there as fast as possible.

I think Dzemael Darkhold did it in an interesting way. I've pulled all the enemies from the start right to the first boss and killed all the enemies on the purple area without a healer. It's an example of a pull that is fun, isn't dangerous but the main problem with it is the concern that a sprout that doesn't know better may have their heart race (in a bad way) when you pull that many enemies, since it looks insane until they come out of it alive.

Aurum Vale did it in an interesting way as well. Most of us learned to navigate around the edge at the start. But given it was the most abandoned dungeon for many years, it seems a lot of players protested with the abandon button and pushed SE's design decisions to where they ended up.

Both these dungeons you had to learn as a tank how to pull some mobs but not others. It was easy to pull more mob packs than you intended and get overwhelmed. This happens less now, so newer players may not understand, but you actually couldn't pull the whole lot in most cases in Aurum Vale and Dzemael, and had to judge the situation depending on the job you were playing, your healer's competence, amount of DPS, etc. Then work out how many your party could handle.

[TaleraRistain]

Aurum Vale did it in an interesting way as well. Most of us learned to navigate around the edge at the start. But given it was the most abandoned dungeon for many years, it seems a lot of players protested with the abandon button and pushed SE's design decisions to where they ended up.

Was getting some older optional dungeons cleared on my alt a couple weeks ago and had someone abandon Pharos. The tank questioned why they hadn't "fixed" that dungeon yet.

[Volgia]

Both these dungeons you had to learn as a tank how to pull some mobs but not others. It was easy to pull more mob packs than you intended and get overwhelmed.

I think we hit another problem and I think this is more on the players, cuz you can just ask if you can do big pulls or small pulls. Back in the day if a healer was a newbie or anxious they would just ask if you could go slow, whereas now there is no need to ask, you will _always_ go the same pace, removing the small skill expression within dungeons.

[Jeeqbit]

I think we hit another problem and I think this is more on the players, cuz you can just ask if you can do big pulls or small pulls. Back in the day if a healer was a newbie or anxious they would just ask if you could go slow, whereas now there is no need to ask, you will _always_ go the same pace, removing the small skill expression within dungeons.

In a lot of cases, 2-3 packs felt about right and allowed for skill expression. Where 3 enemies felt boring. It was boring for the DPS, who couldn't make full use of their rotation on so few enemies. It was boring for the tanks, who virtually didn't need mitigation except in Bardam's Mettle. It was boring for the healers.

I say was because, with our bloated kits and how old content has got more trivial from battle system and potency changes over the years, 2-3 packs is not really much threat in most dungeons anymore.

But the fact is, a tank can still choose to only pull one pack if they want to make it extremely safe and virtually remove the slightest challenge or thought from the activity, so no mit or anything is needed whatsoever, and most likely that is why SE still allows this choice to be a thing. It's just our bloated kits have reduced the challenge of larger pulls in a lot of cases.