Only one dungeon in odd numbered patches

[CaedemSanguis]

I think they are making one dungeon per odd number patch, because of the super savage turn every odd number patch, beside all the other content

[Airget]

It's quite telling how poorly received LoV was when we have the Make it Rain event going on and no one bothers with it on Balmung; the largest server in the game. Saying they missed the mark on this one would be a gross understatement. Which is why I'm forever nervous about Blitzball.

If SE paid me, I"d work to redesign that game, it doesn't even need that much. The issue with it is bloat. Heard this from a video earlier but it reminded me of a thought I had way back. So if you ever played a TCG, like Pokemon, Yugioh, MGT, imagine if you had to make a deck and you were given 10 sets with 100 cards in them each, then told that you only need to make a deck of 40 and you can use doubles of certain cards but to also be mindful of card restrictions. This is pretty much what LoV did, it was like, got the minion? Cool you can use it. If they reeled it back and added a second requirement to use certain minions while also putting a limit to the type of "Deck" you could set, it would feel more strategic.

But as it stands, people either look at the best 3 options or don't bother because it's to a point where it's like. So all I do is spam spam spam the same 2-3 minions til I win? It's not very fun, there is certainty a way they could add more depth and synergy between minions that isn't just based on their 1/4 types. They could also have archetypes for each Minion which synergy when together in a natural "trait" way rather than active abilities. But then you could also have archetypes that work a certain way, like let's say Minion of Light, WHM and BLM. When they are used to destroy a Search Eye they offer an additional enfeeble which reduces all of the enemies Atts by 20% til they eye is repaired.

But see, then you could also add minions designs to repair the Eye and Shield but that in itself would need strategy, since you could attempt to fix the shield but you would also have to be mindful of the enemies actions.

If I had to choose, I'd say, each "Deck" could only have 10 Minions, and each Minion can only be Summoned 4 times aka the amount needed to use their active abilities. With this you would need to be more mindful of how you set the up, but they would also need to create a "Party System" to allow you to chain and unchain certain minions together so they are easier to move around on the battlefield. AKA keeping the healers in the back so they aren't the first to be attacked while moving your offensive to take the brute of the damage.

Granted I'm sure there are issues with my idea I just feel like there could be more life in this game if they didn't just make it a free for all with the minions. It's that one design flaw that really hurts the game. Just Imagine if you could use 5 5 star cards in Triple Triad(Granted I know people would love this for the NPC side) but for the PVP side it would be a nightmare.

[NovaLevossida]

I really don't know why they just don't add more dungeons to the expert roulette. YoshiP states that people will want the easier dungeons in the roulette. And while that's true, the expert roulette could just take the older dungeons and scale up the stats on them. I'd rather pull from a list of 20+ dungeons with stat buffs than a roulette with 2 dungeons, possibly 3, or possibly just 1...

It also wouldn't be hard to make modifiers on dungeons like WoW has done, but they seem really adamant about not making dungeons anything other than a throwaway, boring experience. If the SMN AoE nerfs are more of a push to us to stop making massive pulls as some are saying (on top of gates in our corridor dungeons), it's really saying something about the design choice of the game. Rather than make more interesting, engaging, and dangerous opponents / encounters between bosses in a dungeon, they'd just rather limit our ability to kill packs of mindless and unchallenging mobs.

Dungeons are so easy that it was hard to stay awake in them because they require no focus. HW reduced the count from 3 to 2, and monotony set in. Going to just one in those odd patches isn't helping.

[Pomelo]

Hmm I don't know what to think regarding this, if the new contents are amazing then obviously it's a good thing, but I still think diadem, verminion and so on have been a let down.

[Kaurie]

Didn't read 15 pages, so sorry if I am repeating other people.

Personally, I am pretty disappointed by this. In Heavensward, they reduced it to two with the promise of adding new and fresh content. I was super excited for this initially. The promises of Diadem in particular were so interested. I love exploration and I wanted to try new and fresh content.

That new and fresh content worked out to be: Diadem, Diadem 2.0, LoV, Aquapolis, Squadrons, Feast and Palace of the Dead (am I missing any?). I think that most can agree that Diadem, Diadem 2.0 and LoV were hyped up and all fell flat on their face very shortly after release.

Aquapolis is a bit more controversial, I know some people who love running these. However, I can't understand why or how, from my perspective it's beyond lazy content. The environment is incredibly dull and pretty much reused from old leveling dungeons, the mobs have 0 mechanics and provide 0 challenge. The only real 'game' is the 50/50 choice between choosing the right door. I can't understand how this is fun, in any way. The main benefit is that it gives good rewards.

Palace of the Dead is also controversial. As content, it's pretty boring and dull. That said, it offers a lot more than any of the content above. That said, it seems the only real reason people play it is for speed-leveling.

Squadrons were basically a copy of WoW's Garrisons, one of the most hated pieces of content added to WoW in it's 13 years of existence. Then, after adding it, they basically did nothing with it and it's pretty much dead content. While there is a chance to revive this content in SB, overall it seems like a poor idea.

Feast is arguably the best piece of content added. I personally hate PvP and never do it, so I have very little to add to the discussion. That said, for anyone who PvP's, Feast seems to have been a success.

So, there we have all of the new content. What about the content lost?

Well, we went from 3 dungeons to 2, but in addition to that, the 2 dungeons we got are lack luster. Overall the dungeons throughout HW were less satisfying. They were particularly bad for healers. Every single HW dungeon I was able to go in on release and let Eos solo heal it. I hadn't been able to do that at all between levels 31 and 59. It's just sad that they were tuned so easy to the point of boredom.

So, we lost a lot (1 dungeon and lesser quality on 2 dungeons) to gain dead content, repeatedly. This wasn't 1 flop of a dungeon, or 1 flop of a content. It was every single patch. The best thing I could have heard was that they were going back to 3.0 dungeons like in ARR, and will stick to what works.

[RaizeGraymalkin]

I for one simply don't like the dungeons. They're terrible and can barely even be called content. I quite simply don't do them because they don't interest me at all. You're still going to be getting an average of 1.5 dungeon per patch, so that seems fine to me. You're not losing that type of content if you like it.

To give you an idea of how much I don't like dungeons, I've done expert roulette a grand total of about 10 times in the past year. I honestly don't even know which dungeons are in the current roulette.

You're in an extreme minority though. A LOT of people run dungeons. And calling them "terrible and barely content"? Hyperbole much? This community is prone to that. That would make most of this game fit that moniker.

[Dement]

I'm perfectly happy with this if they properly allocate these resources this time. The game has had a midcore content drought for a long time with most of Heavensward being ridiculously easy (dungeons, diadem, PotD, LoV, MSQ, Alex normal, Squadrons, Aquapolis, Normal primals and even a fair number of extreme primals) or very hardcore (Gordias, Midas, Thordan, Sephirot). There really hasn't been much middle ground and all of the previous released "side content" was almost universally on the insanely easy side with poor reward structures. If even one instance of innovative, fun, well tuned and properly rewarded content comes from this change then I would gladly give up the 8 less dungeons per expansion between ARR and SB.

I also hope that this will force them to provide other alternatives to efficiently cap tomestones beyond running daily roulettes ad nauseum.

Then again, if they continue to use this excuse and still pump out the same poorly thought out, poorly tuned, poorly rewarded content patch after patch, it'll be a much easier decision to save myself $20 per month.

You're in an extreme minority though. A LOT of people run dungeons. And calling them "terrible and barely content"? Hyperbole much? This community is prone to that. That would make most of this game fit that moniker.

A LOT of people also run dungeons not because they enjoy them but because they have to in order to cap tomestones each week in the most efficient manner possible. I wouldn't call dungeons terrible and barely content which I agree is hyperbole; however, dungeons are close to the most casual of PvE content and the casual crowd already gets the lion's share of content anyway.

[RaizeGraymalkin]

It's less a defense and more a willingness to see what they do come up with. Dungeons are little more than a chore half the time. I like a handful of them, however they are all mindless. If something better comes from this, I'm open to it. On the other hand, if they do fumble again, we all can voice our discontent or simply unsub. After all, the best way to force change when companies screw up is to stop giving them money. They don't like that.

Most of the content in this game is mindless. Whatever new content they come up with is going to be mindless and involve killing shit. That's what it's always going to boil down to regardless. And the problem with voicing our discontent is that by that point we've already lost out on potential good content, because they felt like experimenting.

[Kaurie]

I for one simply don't like the dungeons. They're terrible and can barely even be called content. I quite simply don't do them because they don't interest me at all. You're still going to be getting an average of 1.5 dungeon per patch, so that seems fine to me. You're not losing that type of content if you like it.

To give you an idea of how much I don't like dungeons, I've done expert roulette a grand total of about 10 times in the past year. I honestly don't even know which dungeons are in the current roulette.

I personally love instanced and dungeon content. It is 95% of the reason that I got hooked into the MMORPG Genre. That first run of deadmines in WoW got me hooked many many years ago.

That said, I agree with you. Expert dungeons in Heavensward have been terrible. The dungeons have been lazy and it's a big result of this push for other content. The dev team has not had enough resources to develop quality dungeons. I also have run very few expert roulettes this past year (probably more than you, but like ~3-10x per patch).

It's unfortunate that my favourite type of content is such a wash in my favourite game in the genre.

[Vaer]

I'm guessing Eureka has something to do with this reduction since last I heard it was going to tie in with the new relic. Guess we can hope it isn't terrible.