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

[Coldbrand]

FFXI had dungeons, XIV definitely subscribes to the loot hallway methodology. Except without the loot part (you obtained 3 pots of cream yellow dye.) It's not really a dungeon if you can't regularly expect to die, and it's impossible to get lost, and there's no traps or puzzles.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

words

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.

[Keramory]

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.

[Kurogaea]

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.

3. The dungeons are made for clearing quickly like for relic quests and constant replays, complex dungeons would only make that more difficult.

Well yeah it would, because the game would then be adding something great to some god awful system like tomes, though it could be fixed obviously. Increase the tomes achieved by a greater number than normal dungeons. As for roulletes and special quests like relic, just have them on a different topic of their own. They get their own roulettes, own special quests and the ones crunching for time everyday can just run the smaller dungeons.

Players wanting things simplified is related to this pretty much. These larger dungeons should have special additional quests (Not side quests like diadem, actually outside quests you accept and enter the dungeon after) as well as greater tome and exp rewards to balance the time and effort spent in them. Background items and scenery should play better roles in these dungeons, involving item seeking, hidden creatures, traps and plenty other stuff that would scream diversity. At least one dungeon (if not all) should be like this every patch, so those who want to ride the same straight line roller coaster then they can do just that and others can enjoy something more engaging.

[Derio]

From a tanking perspective the dungeons seemed much much easier than 3.1 dungeons and nothing really puts you in danger in the dungeon.

[Khalithar]

Overall I like the designs of the new dungeons. The designs are interesting and I thought the bosses were interesting, especially with the mechanics that forces the party to be paying attention.

Ampador: Everyone has to pay attention for neurosquama, everyone has to pay attention to debuffs, everyone has to pay attention to stance and spell casts.

Antitower: Everyone has to pay attention for frog song, the targeting reticle for the shooting mechanic, and the dollhouse/gaze/parry mechanics.

Trash mobs are trash mobs, they're never too interesting in all the MMO's I played but I did like the dwarf references in antitower and the the FFXI references in ampador.

Visually the dungeons aren't too interesting, Antitower didn't do enough with the upside down concept, I would have liked the majority of it to take place in the upside down tower with a ton of different rooms, an upside garden, an upside down observatory where we could see the night sky beneath us, etc. Now THAT would have been really cool. Ampador reminded me of the first one, the final area with the white void and floating objects was cool, but the foggy quality of the area left me underwhelmed. Music in both dungeons is decent, but don't particularly stand out to me. I honestly expected more from the music, especially after we've gotten such great dungeon music like Pharos, Fractal, Alexander, etc.

[FoxyAreku]

Dungeons will never not be linear. I don't know why you would expect them to be at this point.

[Mykll]

There was a bit of forethought into your pulls of what needs to down first.

Completely agree, and we need more like that. But, that is also coming from an old EQ monk, bard, enchanter.... You know, pullers. Heck the only title I have used for a very long time now is The Strategist. But the problem with this, is we see just how much people hate having to give any thought to pulling the first room in AV.

[Yasuhiro]

Anti Tower is nice for fans of FFIX and IV but again it's literally just a corridor the whole way through with a few circular arenas it's short but it sucks
Amapador keep, what can I say about this place? I'm sick of this place, I'm sick of Ampador as a whole especially this dungeon I think this one goes on way too long and the gating what seems like every couple of steps pads out the dungeon. The sad thing is having multiple paths in a dungeon would not work because the playerbase would always choose the shortest route just to get out of the instance quicker.

I don't know what can be done to save this game and it's stagnating design philosophy.'

and the the FFXI references in ampador.

Those aren't references that's just Square Enix recycling anything and everything with a walking animation from the last 3 Final Fantasy games.

[Erys]

Alternatively, you could have paths and they could work like:

1. 3 path options, where one is the fastest with the hardest mobs and one is the slowest with weakest mobs and one is in between - have the game inform you of this as you approach your choice (Bravely Default style)
2. 3 path options, where one is the 'path of the day' that generates extra reward in the roulette
3. 3 path options, where none are necessarily faster than the other, but favour certain compositions - 1 may be AoE friendly (got SMN?), 1 may be physical damage heavy (got PLD?), 1 may be single target focused (got melee or blm?) [this is a bit like T2 where left was better for physical damage and right for magical damage]

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