2 new dungeons ?

[Colorful]

I believe the reason given for only adding two new dungeons from now on was so that they could put more development time into things other than just dungeons for content patches. 3.1 promises to add a lot: An entire new system to the Gold Saucer on par with TT and Chocobo racing, a substantial expansion to FC airships, and QoL additions for the housing system; all of which are no small feat. Hopefully, that trend continues moving forward.

That said, I'll admit that I was a little disappointed that one of the two new dungeons is a hard mode.

The thing is we got all that, without sacrificing dungeons in 2.x, didn't we? The marriage system, FC/Personal housing system (not just QoL changes) the entirety of the Gold Saucer (2 big games, minigames, the area, rewards). The only big thing we're getting otherwise that's different is the Airship changes, which is why I'm hoping it'll be somewhat decent.

[Moonleg]

The thing is we got all that, without sacrificing dungeons in 2.x, didn't we? The marriage system, FC/Personal housing system (not just QoL changes) the entirety of the Gold Saucer (2 big games, minigames, the area, rewards). The only big thing we're getting otherwise that's different is the Airship changes, which is why I'm hoping it'll be somewhat decent.

The question we will never get an answer to, though, is how much of that was worked on during the 2.0 production phase. Was the Gold Saucer half finished when 2.0 launched and just needed more tweaking and testing? Was the marriage system ready to go once the last few bugs got ironed out? I think it's fair to say they had a bunch of things that were beyond the stage of being just a fancy idea on a napkin, but sooner or later they had to run out of those.

[Airget]

The thing is we got all that, without sacrificing dungeons in 2.x, didn't we? The marriage system, FC/Personal housing system (not just QoL changes) the entirety of the Gold Saucer (2 big games, minigames, the area, rewards). The only big thing we're getting otherwise that's different is the Airship changes, which is why I'm hoping it'll be somewhat decent.

The examples you presented though don't require the same amount of balance as dungeons do and battle content in general.

Golden Saucer, only real balance are MGP values
Triple Triad, opponent AI and point value of tourney
Marriage, no balance at all

Dungeons however have to be fine tuned and thus they require more effort in the quality assurance department then other content they have released. You might see it as "sacrificing" but honestly I see it as expanding on a system by providing an option that isn't just defeat 3 bosses get loot and win. The sky content has opportunity to be more flexible than dungeons because it doesn't have to follow a formula to entice players to go to them, they can play each island as it's own unique entity with positives and negatives unlike dungeons where they have to play the same, take the same amount of time, and the difficulty curve has to be worth the reward.

Make a dungeon to hard, people will just flock to the easier dungeon because they can be done faster (This is what happened with brayflox HM)

Dungeon takes to long, they will ignore it and do a more time efficient dungeon (Again brayflox HM)

They learned early on that if they aren't careful with finely tuning each dungeon to take the same amount of time/have similar difficulty that people are less likely to do them.

[CyrilLucifer]

I honestly don't care that one is a Hard mode dungeon so long as I don't have to run Neverreap in roulette again and again and again for another 4 months.

[Colorful]

snip

The new pet battles is an entire new system, so it likely took more resources than a dungeon, as would airship exploration since they don't have a set pattern they can work with but I'm just guessing here. In an interview Yoshida did say instanced dungeons are fairly easy, cheap, and quick enough to develop, probably doesn't see them as being worth the time which is disagree with honestly. @Moonleg, fair enough. Gold Saucer was probably in development since 2.0 or 2.1. Didn't really think about that. >_<

[Alberel]

The thing is we got all that, without sacrificing dungeons in 2.x, didn't we? The marriage system, FC/Personal housing system (not just QoL changes) the entirety of the Gold Saucer (2 big games, minigames, the area, rewards). The only big thing we're getting otherwise that's different is the Airship changes, which is why I'm hoping it'll be somewhat decent.

You have to remember that the development team is split up into smaller teams dedicated to certain types of content. Housing and the GS are handled by a specific team and battle content is handled by another. The new open-world group content for the airship system will undoubtedly have been developed by the same team that typically handles dungeons which is why I think we're only getting two.

In some ways I think this is actually a good idea since dungeon content becomes obsolete so quickly. I would much rather they put more effort into new gameplay systems that will have a bit more life in them.