People are already speedrunning Sohm Al (Hard)

[Vhailor]

This. If you play an MMO for long enough, or do anything with repetitive tasks, really, eventually you'll end up wanting to do those things as efficiently as possible.

All jobs at 60 are capable of high AoE DPS. The tanks are capable of surviving 15 mobs hitting them, because the healers are capable of healing them through it while still finding time to DPS. Basically, dungeons are so easy that the only thing that limits how much we can pull are the gates imposed on us by the game's level designers. I'm not saying I don't enjoy dungeon runs (I do), but I don't want to spend longer than necessary in them because I could be doing other stuff that's actually challenging.

I don't think me pulling door-to-door is a speedrun, and I don't think it's a detriment to the experience of first-timers. They still get to see the dungeon and watch all the cutscenes, since SE realized they were being stupid with CM and Prae back in 2013.

I agree with your point about people wanting to do things efficiently, but I couldn't disagree more with your last statement. Speed runs alter the dungeon experience, they don't provide as much of a learning experience, and they sort of suck the soul out of the dungeon, in my opinion at least.

There are two core design decisions here that have contributed to the rise of speed runs (and yes, those are a thing; saying it's just what you do is playing games with semantics).

1.) SE makes easy dungeons. If they don't start off that way, they eventually become that way as everyone becomes more powerful (i.e. the next version update). SE could easily change this if they wanted to; they could, for instance, make the iLevel cap stricter, so that over-gearing didn't break actual dungeon mechanics. They could also implement a tweak to specifically discourage the pulling of multiple groups; something like a 'damage multiplier' that triggers when multiple groups are pulled. Say, if two groups are engaged at once, they each do double damage; three groups engaged at once, everything does triple damage. Regardless, there are options, if SE ever wants to discourage speed-runs.

2.) SE designs dungeons with high levels of repetition in mind. Especially when dungeons are first released, people are running them several times a week. This results in boredom and a desire to finish the experience as quickly as possible. There are also plenty of alternatives here, if SE were ever inclined to revisit the issue.

So for anyone disliking speed-runs (and I count myself in that group), these are the two root causes to attack. It's pointless to ask for different DF options, or complain about speed-runners in general; speed-runs are a product of their environment.