New Dungeon is a return to bad habits

[Valence]

I personally feel like the real issue is trash packs not having synergy that must be broken.

I've expressed this elsewhere, but every role should feel their impact when they take on a trash pack, and "gather and aoe" should be extremely dangerous to attempt.

I want trash packs to feel more like M6S add phase (but without the brutal enrages) and less like the current normal dungeon content.

Example mob types that, when thrown together, would do this:
1 mob stacks vulns on the tank.
Another mob winds up very powerful aoes and requires interrupts.
Another will throw para or silence on the healer.
Another frenzies.
Another moves slowly and can quickly 2-shot a tank, but behaves like the "spiny" in UWU and locks onto the first person to hit it (kite it or else)
etc. etc.

That's what I'd like having instead of constantly playing that stupid tug of war between "dungeons should be easy" and "dungeons should be challenging". Dungeons are baseline AND msq and if people even remotely think they'll be made more difficult then perhaps it's a little deluded. But making them engaging though, and without speaking about the job design and everything beyond, it's the gameplay that's not engaging.

[Miguel85NYC]

Dungeons should be easy though. You have 3 more difficult settings of content to play including V&C again soon.

No they SHOULD not be easy....

[VeyaAkemi]

No they SHOULD not be easy....

Dare I ask why? I can understand the argument of, "how easy is too easy", even if I also find it pretty easy(heh) to figure out how to have my fun with them anyway, but why should dungeons mandatory for story progression and eventually necessary to unlock basic functions not be easy enough that it is expected everyone to clear them?

[Ath192]

Dare I ask why? I can understand the argument of, "how easy is too easy", even if I also find it pretty easy(heh) to figure out how to have my fun with them anyway, but why should dungeons mandatory for story progression and eventually necessary to unlock basic functions not be easy enough that it is expected everyone to clear them?

Well, I would argue that they are max level dungeons, and appear on an "Expert roulette"

When you hear the phrase: Well this requires an expert. You would expect the instance to require someone who has mastered their job to some degree and a dungeon you couldn't stumble through to clearing right? I mean, that is just logical.

So for one, the labels are confusing. Then we could get into the fact that as a game progresses there is a general expectation that you will be pitted against more challenging scenarios, after all, your character has grown and acquired new skills, and the stakes have risen. Generally, players would be pretty disappointed if the final boss of a game was as easy as the first tutorial island tasks.

I'm more confused about the opposite take really, that any endgame stuff should be a cakewalk just because? People don't want to put any effort I guess?

[VeyaAkemi]

When you hear the phrase: Well this requires an expert. You would expect the instance to require someone who has mastered their job to some degree and a dungeon you couldn't stumble through to clearing right? I mean, that is just logical.

So for one, the labels are confusing.

I agree that the terms are unintuitive, but only so far as they might need an external explanation to be understood, the explanation themselves are pretty straightforward, "Expert" just mean "released within the last two patches", just like how "High-level" doesn't actually means high level, it means "level that was, at one point, the level cap of the game", you could definitely argue those terms should be changed to something more sensible, whatever that would be, but that's a different issue.

Then we could get into the fact that as a game progresses there is a general expectation that you will be pitted against more challenging scenarios, after all, your character has grown and acquired new skills, and the stakes have risen. Generally, players would be pretty disappointed if the final boss of a game was as easy as the first tutorial island tasks.

And they aren't as easy. "Tutorial island tasks" would be, what, Sastasha in comparison? and while Mistwake is easy, it is still plenty harder than most ARR dungeons, except the ones that are particularly gimmicky, it's a sliding scale, not a binary, this is a point that someone tried to bring up before and you completely dismissed.

There is the point said difficulty has plateaued, and it was pretty long ago, but due to the sheer length of XIV, it is also fair to say that a lot of people's ability to improve has also plateaued pretty long ago, so I don't know why to expect it to keep getting harder.

I'm more confused about the opposite take really, that any endgame stuff should be a cakewalk just because? People don't want to put any effort I guess?

Personally, I don't consider dungeons, independent of level, to be "endgame" content, they may be max level, but they are still baseline content for that level, so I expect the difficulty to be baseline, and that's what I get, again there is probably an argument to "how easy is too easy", but that's not something I can answer.

[Ath192]

And they aren't as easy. "Tutorial island tasks" would be, what, Sastasha in comparison?.

Actually Sastasha was harder than new dungeons because it required you to memorize a hidden note in an unassuming room and later use that clue to guess the correct color of Coral to select in the first boss room in order to open the door or you would get punished with an additional enemy.

That's a level of dungeon complexity and context awareness that is no longer required of the player in todays max level dungeons.

[VeyaAkemi]

Actually Sastasha was harder than new dungeons because it required you to memorize a hidden note in an unassuming room and later use that clue to guess the correct color of Coral to select in the first boss room in order to open the door or you would get punished with an additional enemy.

That's a level of dungeon complexity and context awareness that is no longer required of the player in todays max level dungeons.

If that's what you are going to try to use as an argument, it really shows you have nothing.

[CCheshire]

I personally feel like the real issue is trash packs not having synergy that must be broken.

I've expressed this elsewhere, but every role should feel their impact when they take on a trash pack, and "gather and aoe" should be extremely dangerous to attempt.

I want trash packs to feel more like M6S add phase (but without the brutal enrages) and less like the current normal dungeon content.

Example mob types that, when thrown together, would do this:
1 mob stacks vulns on the tank.
Another mob winds up very powerful aoes and requires interrupts.
Another will throw para or silence on the healer.
Another frenzies.
Another moves slowly and can quickly 2-shot a tank, but behaves like the "spiny" in UWU and locks onto the first person to hit it (kite it or else)
etc. etc.

This exists in DD like PT as we have dangerous roaming and patrols for mobs on the higher floors that can 1 KO tanks, needed top be interrupted, and V&C mobs are the same idea of risk but mostly no one really cares about mobs because no one is here to fight a million annoying mobs until the final boss room. Also, it would slow down the rous enough that ppl would ditch them even more, which wouldn't be great for new players.

[Ath192]

If that's what you are going to try to use as an argument, it really shows you have nothing.

Are you kidding me XD you know I had a sad realization when I was typing that because it’s true. On top of that you could do a huge pull of 12 mobs or more in the pond area.

It was more dangerous to do that than the 2 packs were limited to in new dungeons. It’s hilariously real.

The first dungeon in the game really was much more complex than the current dungeon. I don’t know why you would deny such an obvious truth since you yourself brought that dungeon up.

Oh wait… it doesn’t fit your narrative. That’s why….

[VeyaAkemi]

Are you kidding me XD you know I had a sad realization when I was typing that because it’s true. On top of that you could do a huge pull of 12 mobs or more in the pond area.

It was more dangerous to do that than the 2 packs were limited to in new dungeons. It’s hilariously real.

It absolutely isn't, that first pull in the pond is pathetically easy in a world where most enemies do literally 2-3 damage and Healers have literally nothing to do in pulls other than spam their basic heal, people who try to act like ARR pulls are hard completely ignore the reality of Healer level scaling, and that it's not until Qarn that anything will threaten you, and even then only because of the bees which is a gimmick attack, and nothing genuinely hurts until Stone Vigil, this leads to most of ARR being piss easy wtw pulls where the Healer and Tank do nothing but mash a single button.

Yet here you are attempting to act like, what was it again, 2-3 more mobs that will appear only after the initial pull is done, to the point nobody cares about the note and just take their chances at the button, add any real complexity or are any more of an annoyance.

Oh wait… it doesn’t fit your narrative. That’s why….

Please heed to your own words, it's you who is adhering to a blind narrative.