Low-manning dungeons should be rewarding!

[Naunet]

Hey there! Recently re-subbed after having quit over a year back because a number of frustrations became too much to bear. Motivated by the fact that a friend of mine I haven't been able to game with in a while started playing this again, I decided to give it a second chance, re-rolled on a new server for a fresh start and everything. Going to work really hard to not think too much about the things that pissed me off and drove me away (mostly the horrible game design of housing and glamours >_<) and just log in whenever and enjoy playing with my husband and our mutual friend.

That brings me to this, my one failure... D:

One thing I recalled from past reading to keep up with the game was that SE had implemented a way to enter dungeons without the full party size of 4. I was thrilled to see that, as I'm one of those gamers who likes to just try things because I can. I really chafe against restrictions that tell me, "No, you cannot because we say so". I pointed the feature out to my husband, and we both got super excited, as one of the things we like to do to keep leveling interesting in some MMOs is low-man dungeons. It's a way for us to get challenge out of content that doesn't usually have any challenge (unless it's WildStar dungeons.. XD). For example, back when we played WoW many years ago, we created a pair of characters and leveled them almost entirely by just chain 2-manning all the dungeons in the game. We 2-manned every single 5-man content from Ragefire Chasm to Halls of Reflection (yes). Definitely more engaging and challenging than running stuff with a full group, and it was super fun to boot. The level 60 BC dungeons especially got very difficult with only 2 people. xD

Anyway, we were clearly thrilled at the prospect of doing this - or at least attempting it - while leveling our rerolled characters. The leveling dungeons in this game aren't really challenging at all, so we figure what better way to keep ourselves engaged than create challenge?

But then a fellow guild member informed us that if you low-man a dungeon, you don't get experience.

I really don't understand this design decision at all. The guildie who told us this seemed to honestly fear that if low-manning rewarded experience, then no one would ever be able to get dungeon groups again. That seems like just an absurd fear to have, as it certainly wasn't a problem in any other MMO you can do this in. We would be tackling the content in a more challenging way, and taking away a huge chunk of the reason for going in there in the first place (to level) seems really counterintuitive.

I will hope that someone may see this thread and perhaps push to change this design in a future patch. :/ Please, let us receive all of the experience points due to us for going through a dungeon, regardless of how many people are in the instance.

***

Some concerns brought up and my rebuttals:

Concerns:

1. Level-capped players shouldn't be able to just carry lowbies for levels.

Fair enough. The solution to that is to either eliminate the XP rewards for all if someone of a higher level than the dungeon enters, or scale as PArcher suggested:

If they implement xp rewards for undersizing dungeons, then have to scale it based on the people in the party. Someone up to 5 levels over sync? 1/2 penalty to xp. 5+ levels over? Gain 1/4 or less xp. Lv60 present? No xp.

2. If you give people the option to go in with less and get XP, no one will queue up for DF.

To which I say, this is a made-up concern that won't have any real impact. It's not something that happens in any other MMO (who all generally allow you to enter dungeons however you want), and I can't imagine why FFXIV would be different.

3. Bots!

They're going in with parties of 4 anyway, and why would a bot want to do something that would be harder? That'll just end up with dead bots.

[Devils_Lawyer]

The no experiance is to prevent you from getting a lvl 60 to 1 shot everything in the dungeon for fast and easy exp.

Basicly either you do the dungeon the normal way with normal rewards, or you do it the fast and easy way with no rewards.

If you dont like long duty finder ques you can always preform a full party.

[Naunet]

The no experiance is to prevent you from getting a lvl 60 to 1 shot everything in the dungeon for fast and easy exp.

Easiest solution to prevent that is to cut XP rewards if there's someone in there who is higher level. If you go in at-level, you should get at-level XP rewards, regardless of the number of people.

We don't want to do it "fast and easy". It's already super easy with 4 at-level people, hence wanting to test our mettle with just 2 to keep our leveling experience engaging.

[RedShipRaider]

Easiest solution to prevent that is to cut XP rewards if there's someone in there who is higher level. If you go in at-level, you should get at-level XP rewards, regardless of the number of people.

We don't want to do it "fast and easy". It's already super easy with 4 at-level people, hence wanting to test our mettle with just 2 to keep our leveling experience engaging.

This is not a bad idea. But I don't know that it's really a good enough idea to implement. Ideally, it would be great to have options for every possible sort of play style! I am rather skeptical, though, that there would be enough people interested in this feature of running dungeons short man at level to justify putting development time and money into it.

It seems like a good idea. But there are a ~lot~ of good ideas, and limited resources available.

[Atlaworks]

Low-manning a dungeon is rewarding- you still get all the loot from treasure boxes. You don't get EXP so that you can't just faceroll every dungeon from 15 to 50 with a level 60 friend flailing at anything remotely hostile.

[Anubis_Nephthys]

The no gil/no xp is so the RMT won't have it even easier.

[Welsper59]

I was a tad disappointed by the no exp thing, regardless of participants being of-level for the dungeon. I get, however, that it's probably for the aspect to keep some appeal to using DF pugs, so whatever.

If they implement xp rewards for undersizing dungeons, then have to scale it based on the people in the party. Someone up to 5 levels over sync? 1/2 penalty to xp. 5+ levels over? Gain 1/4 or less xp. Lv60 present? No xp.

This actually isn't a very difficult thing to do, since it already exists outside of dungeons. If anything, they could just set it so that anyone over the 2+ level range present will negate dungeon exp entirely (or however many levels it is for ARR dungeons with normal DF queuing).

The no gil/no xp is so the RMT won't have it even easier.

RMT generally have a 4-man bot party anyway. Position haxx can carry you pretty damn far.

[PArcher]

If they implement xp rewards for undersizing dungeons, then have to scale it based on the people in the party. Someone up to 5 levels over sync? 1/2 penalty to xp. 5+ levels over? Gain 1/4 or less xp. Lv60 present? No xp.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

If they implement xp rewards for undersizing dungeons, then have to scale it based on the people in the party. Someone up to 5 levels over sync? 1/2 penalty to xp. 5+ levels over? Gain 1/4 or less xp. Lv60 present? No xp.

Exactly. Please add it.

[Naunet]

Precisely, PArcher!