So how about them new dungeons? (Layout and difficulty)

[Kaurie]

The main issue here is time spent in the dungeons and how quickly the novelty wears off. Make trash mobs have more gimmicks and people will complain that the runs will drag out. Having things like randomized mazes or forced puzzles will also garner similar results. Why? Because the only reason people want to run dungeons is either EXP or tomestones and forcing the player to slow down with random gimmicks that could vary how much time they spend inside will create friction between those that just want the nth run over with and those that want to see everything (sorta like what happened with the Castrum runs, eh?)

Now don't assume that I DON'T want more designed dungeons. I do want something like the single player Final Fantasy dungeons, but seeing the nature of this game and the players, I don't expect anything more and neither should anyone else. In fact, it seems the gimmicky fights/trials are being used in the MSQ, which I did happen to enjoy. With dungeons and trials that you have to run over and over for drops or tomes, things are going to be streamlined for the sake of making it simple to do when you need to obtain something.

Agreed, this is more or less what I was talking about in the second half of my post. That said, 'gimmicks' (I like the call them game-design) don't have to be things that drag things out. A randomized maze doesn't have to take forever. The maze could theoretically take 15 minutes or 45 minutes, depending on how good your team is (not unlike current dungeons). Further, people already complain the runs drag out, so the current method doesn't exclude this behaviour.

That said, I got into MMO's originally because I loved running dungeons. I currently only run them for exp or tomestones, because well, they suck here. If they made them interesting, I'd run them more for fun. --- Or, at least I'd have fun while I'm getting my tomes/exp.

I don't expect very much from this development team to be honest. My opinion in 2.4 would have been different. Throughout 2.x I always felt that the devs listened to player feedback and designed a great game. However, more recently every time Yoshi speaks to the public and addresses community concerns, I almost literally face-palm. I feel there is a huge disconnect between what players want and what Yoshi hears. So, even if they did read this board, I wouldn't expect them to put out a quality dungeon, but probably something unnecessarily complicated and frustrating.

As for your comments on dungeons and trials, I think the issue is difficulty. An interesting encounter does not HAVE to be difficult (even though I personally enjoy challenging content). It's just something different than the same ol. The devs would be showing players that players won't just be doing the same thing until they quit and showing players that the dev team actually has some creative talent outside of their writers.

Wouldn't the marked defeat the purpose of exploring a dungeon? Adventure is not adventure without mistery.

This is precisely something out of Bravely Default. I personally quite enjoyed it. The message was there and gave you a sense to explore (as someone who loves exploring, i loved this). You approached the path area and a pop up came up saying there are 3 paths and described the inverse relationship between length and difficulty. I was excited to pick a path and see what it had in store.

It's strange. I thought the two dungeons were so opposite from one another.

One dungeon, the lost Temple, was insanely easy... Especially its last boss. I don't even know how you lose to it. As a healer I don't even know if I'm needed in the fight other then pretending to be a black Mage. I will say though the dungeon looked good. Boring run through, but good looking.

Then there's our new upside down tower. It trolls you with spending the majority of the time outside the dumb thing, then you go down a few halls and bam, boss. But at least the bosses were interesting and mechanics could actually kill you.

I'd rather them just spent the time to make one super dungeon then this.

It may have been your groups, or your playstyle, but both dungeons are incredibly easy. As a SCH, Eos/Selene is powerful enough to heal the entire dungeon with the exception of the bosses where I throw up a few adlos/succors and physicks. It feels very much like I am already 30-50 ilvls over what I need to be.