End Game version of 4 man Dungeons(mid-core content)

[Deliciou5]

I am honestly tired of the current way of doing things, expert/4 fights of savage/extreme primal/24-man raid.

My idea is to turn all the 4 man level 50 and 60 dungeons, and make 8 man "nightmare/heroic/savage" versions of them. To turn them into something you do for end game, but not have them INSANELY hard like the single fights are for coil/alexander, just have them balanced for high level play. Like if the ilvl cap for level 70 was 360 then these new Savage ver. of dungeons would be balanced for ilvl 345, similar to normal savage prob. but not as hard, just harder mobs and mechanics.

The way i see the lore and story of it is that its like a nightmare version of each dungeon, kinda like dynamis in ffxi was a parallel dimension/dreamworld. Have diablos or some other avatar be the controller of this realm.

It always felt like a waste with so much effort put into so many of these dungeons for boss ideas, and dungeons themes that they go to waste on what is essentially pushover content even on the expert level, i rather have a higher version which i can consider a part of endgame where i only need 1 weekly clear, instead of a daily roulette chore that's considerably easy, esp when players over gear for them. Here is the outline on how it would work:

1. Make trash mobs, not trash. Make the normal mobs more intimidating and have more mechanics associated with them with more dangerous moves. Make large pulls nearly impossible.(Like 2-4 of them AT MOST, and that is considering that it is 8 man now with 2 tanks tanking). This will effectively make pulls much more tense and exciting slowly making your way through the dungeon to make it a ACTUAL DUNGEON CRAWL and actually considering different strategies to take down mobs,and god forbid, using crowd control moves to help with the larger pulls you can't avoid when there is 6+ mobs being pulled no matter what. Save the non-strategy, mass pulling, aoe downing speed runs for expert. This is a part of end game.

2. Revamp bosses with new mechanics and new moves, making the hardest possible version of each boss. Less aoe indicators for moves and more group strategies, dps-check lite, and raid lite mechanics, not too demanding but don't make it 1-2 shot push over content. If you know the normal boss insides and out it will make fight alot easier, but still have new twists and unexpected things.

3. Add chests that increase timer for dungeon and add special buffs to group such as dmg up/dmg resist/treasure find up/etc. when defeating trash mobs, to make the dungeon slightly more forgiving for people who wipe a lot.

4. Make it so you get better quality chests on bosses based on:

1.How fast you killed the boss.
2.How many times you wiped to boss(not normal mobs).
3.How well you did mechanics/how many party members died even if you didn't wipe.

5. Have loot be based on weekly system allow 1 gear drop/1 crafting Material and 1 High level materia drop for the week.

High level crafting catalysts will be part of the loot pool for players to lot on but limited to 1 piece per week and rarity based on how far you get.

Gear will be comparable to weekly tomestone gear, but you can get only 1 piece a week, also since the dungeons will be relatively hard you may not get to the end of the before timer expires, so you may not be able to see things like chest piece/pants since you didn't get to final boss since loot is based on how far you get into the dungeon. 1st/2nd boss drops accessories last boss will drop chest/wep. etc.

High level materia will drop, and you can only loot one, maybe create new types of materia instead of having the same old boring stat ones, maybe have dual materia's for high quality chests/last boss chest, or Special materia that makes longer cool downs have seconds taken off of them 20 seconds less on benediction(can only use one of these) and have them super rare and have to get best chests to get them.

Diversifying the loot will make it relevant for end game always even after getting all your weekly tomestone/savage gear because of crafting materials/high level materia.

6. Make it random which dungeon you will get so you cannot just choose the easiest one everytime, use the larger pool of dungeons to keep things interesting.

7.Make random Nightmare Notorious monsters appear that drop very good loot. To make them optional make them appear in rooms and areas you already cleared if you fulfill certain requirements, like kill multiple bosses without dieing, or don't die on any normal mob pulls, or make good time etc. Reward high level play with a hard optional fights to spice up these dungeons and add some randomness to them. Have a message appear on screen to tell you they spawned to go look for them.

8. Add nightmare doors that randomly appear like nightmare notorious monsters that have unique boss fights that are unique to this content that would work like any other boss normally but its a wholly unique encounter to keeps things interesting also might be a chance to add unique characters/bosses from other games!

How it would work:

Go into nightmare door>Separate timer and mini-zone where you fight powerful normal mobs leading up to the optional boss. You have limited time to kill mobs and get to boss and defeat it before being ejected back into normal dungeon. Normal mobs can still drop chests to give you extra time and other buffs to complete this.

The balance i am trying to go for is harder than 24 man, but not as hard as savage level, i want something to do that end game where you can actually join a roulette for this, and even if you don't beat the dungeon, still make some decent progress with any party with a little communication, bring challenging fun back to random parties.

Overall i know its reusing older scenario's content, but i think if its done right even older players would have fun exploring some of these older areas again and see them in a new light considering the way you approach every encounter in these nightmare version would be completely different than 4 man. It also gives new players to fully appreciate all these unique bosses/encounters and actually have them be a challenge like when they were first released, and now slowly new dungeons are already over leveled and push over content on day 1 of their release.

Thank you for reading!