Thread: Please Buff 2.4 Dungeons

In my opinion, the latest batch of dungeons were just about the ideal difficulty. In terms of sheer mob damage output they are kinda week compared to the average group, but in terms of actual fight mechanics they can surprise you. Just looking at the final boss of each dungeon, Giruveganus has a whole bevy of unmarked AoEs requiring you to memorize its 'tells', and then be able to split your attention between two bosses who can't be tanked; Avere Bravearm, while himself a simple 'tank-and-spank' boss, is supported by AoEs all over the place and a massive AoE that you can't tank through unless you actually pay attention to said massive AoE's gimmick; and even now, I still wind up with the occasional random ally in Hullbreaker who doesn't realize that the green symbol over them means they need to move to a different island or else there's a very good chance we'll wipe. And, of course, everyone has their own horror stories of horrible ST runs.

As FFXIV goes forward, I imagine SE will come up with increasingly interesting fight mechanics that are a combination of "Pay attention to this gimmick or you all die" and "You can tank through this but it'll hurt" fight mechanics, allowing for difficult dungeons without ever having to actually buff the minimum required iLvl past what can be easily attained by 'casual' players.

Just my two cents on this subject.

I think dungeons are fine as it is. I mostly do them with people I know in premades and I like to chat and joke while I do them; "engame" difficult would clash with that. If I want difficulty, I go to Coil and and Primals EX. There are still some mechanics that can catch you by surprise, but they're mostly relaxing and that's why I like about them. If anything, since Primals EX and Coil don't have much storyline, I'd rather they focus more on that.

Here is a good idea to make everyone happy. Create a 4 man extreme difficulty dungeon (as or more difficult the Coils) that drops Sands/Oils/i110 weapons / gear. That would keep the Hardmode / casual difference while giving everyone a reason to try the new dungeon.

exept if you want to relax, dungeon are not there for that, you have tons of activity you can do outside the dungeon for...relax, they have make sure we have tons of stuff like this...

anyway, i read quite scary answer here, it's not elitist to ask for make the dungeon more hard and challenging than it is now... it's called progression. the new dungeon are dangerous maybe 2-3 first time, after everybody know the mechanic and, let's the speedrun no brain begin.

one point, the skill of a player evolve too... if you don't make him face challenge he will not progress, if he face challenge that will train him, he will become better, allowing him to take even harder challenge!

The only way I'll be happy with the next batch of dungeons is if they do away with the whole crafting mats dropping from boss chests thing.

I'd like to see dungeons that have intelligent enemies that ignore hate mechanics. Instead, they attack healers and soft targets first. This would mean teams have to use binds, slow, and positioning more effectively. The last boss in Stone Vigil Hard was a step in the right direction. Of course, tanks will have to have some crowd control skills added. Some of the best fun I've had is with tankless dungeon runs. This isn't to say the trinity should be completely discarded, but at least half of the encounters should use AI that determines priority in a logical way. It is silly to smack on a high armor target while being beat on by soft targets that do far more damage.

I never read through anything other than the TC but I completely agree with the idea of a heroic mode for level 50 dungeons that reward slightly more, nothing comparable to end game raiding but there has to be some reward so they're not ignored, since people like to just do whatever is fastest and get the hell out.

Anyway I'm not good at thinking up best ways to implement things I just think hard mode dungeons is a great idea if they announced it I would be very excited

I like how, in every patch, SE tries out brand new mechanics in dungeons. That's not sarcasm speaking either, I really like that. This time, I felt that there was a huge leap of faith taken with a large number of alterations to how bosses work. One boss was fully reliant on being damaged by cannons, which I found to actually be refreshing and unique. Then the final boss of HM Vigil completely ignored enmity and just attacked whoever it wanted, which I found to be interesting. Another boss in Tam-Tara HM was reliant on Kiting, another one had you protect an NPC, though I admit the final boss of Tam-Tara HM was very much like a scaled-down version of Bone Dragon in Labyrinth of the Ancients.

I personally found Hullbreaker Isle to be so much more enjoyable than any other dungeon to date. The music and the atmosphere just made the entire area seem ripe for exploration in a refreshingly uncharacteristic light-heartedness that most dungeons have simply not had before. A lot of past dungeons have just been far too dark, ominous, and/or urgent in their defeat of evil. Hullbreaker was just a bunch of adventurers exploring an island. And to me, it's just a very nice and almost relaxing break from "Evil Demons/Dragons/Grotesque Abominations have infested this place and only you can stop them because they're evil beings doing evil things!"

I definitely look forward to more lighthearted dungeons, even if they only exist to counterbalance the especially dark and morbid ones like Tam-Tara HM.

But as far as difficulty goes, the only way to really make something more difficult is to mix things up. In Lost City of Amdapour, there was a boss that only attacked players with a certain debuff on them. No one else, meaning that if anyone other than the tank got hit with that debuff, they were screwed. I think developing ways to make it so that the tank becomes less and less the primary target despite the massive enmity generation or finding other unique ways to completely screw with role dynamics would be the best way to inject some real difficulty. Otherwise, it's just the artificial "increase HP and damage dealt" difficulty spike that only serves to require the exact same boring tactics to defeat, "Tanks generate enmity on the boss, healers heal the tanks and DPS as needed, DPS deal as much damage as possible to the boss."

Even though I will usually volunteer to be the main tank in everything, I would like to see more game mechanics flipped upside-down, or even sideways/slantways just to mix things up a bit more.