POTD needs revamp (boring)

[Lelila38]

It's boring because it's too easy, yet it was designed to be very easy, so you could do it with all possible job combinations.
I'd really like to be able to start from floor 100, to get to the more interesting floors faster. And I do believe it's gonna be expanded to make up for the lvl increase to 70. Max lvl in there is still 60.

[Zojha]

It's boring because it's too easy, yet it was designed to be very easy, so you could do it with all possible job combinations.

Except that being able to do it with all possible job combinations and being challenging are not mutually exclusive.

They simply need to work more with mechanics that you need to do to avoid damage and less with un-avoidable damage that you just have to take. Scratch autoattacks, bombard with telegraphed AoEs instead. Scratch ambient group damage, put tethers, meteors, gaze attacks, platforming, slide mechanics, stacking, splitting and whatnot instead. Use some non-standard telegraph for basic boss attacks like in Stone Vigil (Hard).

You can make that shit harder than A11S and still allow for every group composition, because you only need to make healers and tanks optional to allow for any composition and in order to make tanks and healers optional, all you need is to make all damage avoidable in some way. And that's what mechanics are - attacks where you can avoid a part, or all of the damage by doing them correctly or stepping out of the way.

They just didn't do it. Probably because it'd have taken more effort than throwing random standard trash and standard bosses in there >_>

[Serilda]

Please no to 8-man unless they're going to support undersized parties properly (not so much an issue in POTD of course but any new Boss Rush setup might be less generous). I want to play with my friends, not my friends and a couple of random slaves to make up numbers. There's so little hard content for small groups; I want new POTD to be seriously challenging for us.

[usalia]

pots needs a 100% revamp so at last it have more that 3 looks to the maps. add random bosses/monsters and not the same ones all the time. this can be a good fix.

[Squintina]

POTD is especially boring for new/returning players, like me.

I did my first POTD run using the matched party and everyone else was killing monsters before my cast even finished because my aether gear was not leveled, and I guess theirs was.
That means I'm essentially being carried until my gear goes up. At least with regular dungeons, the level sync does a really good job of making me not feel useless when experienced players are in my party. (and yes I know there is some sort of a sync for POTD, but it's not well balanced if a boss can die in about 3 seconds)

[Nixxe]

Doing the highest level Stormblood dungeon that you can is the best way to level for tanks and healers. For DPS, if you really don't want to do Palace, spam Frontline, preferably Shatter. At around level 65 or so (depending on win rate), it overtakes Palace as the best way to get XP for DPS jobs. Other than that all you can really do is wait for the next deep dungeon.

POTD is especially boring for new/returning players, like me.

I did my first POTD run using the matched party and everyone else was killing monsters before my cast even finished because my aether gear was not leveled, and I guess theirs was.
That means I'm essentially being carried until my gear goes up. At least with regular dungeons, the level sync does a really good job of making me not feel useless when experienced players are in my party. (and yes I know there is some sort of a sync for POTD, but it's not well balanced if a boss can die in about 3 seconds)

Aetherpool scaling is part of it, but also the mobs just tend to be pushovers to an extent. Many of the bosses also tend to be perhaps a bit too easy in terms of mechanics, which makes them entirely zergable. For instance, it's common to leave the floor 61 boss in his haste puddle because it doesn't actually matter. Really all you can do is get a fixed party together and work to 101+, where the dungeon begins to outscale the aetherpool.

[Squintina]

Aetherpool scaling is part of it, but also the mobs just tend to be pushovers to an extent. Many of the bosses also tend to be perhaps a bit too easy in terms of mechanics, which makes them entirely zergable. For instance, it's common to leave the floor 61 boss in his haste puddle because it doesn't actually matter. Really all you can do is get a fixed party together and work to 101+, where the dungeon begins to outscale the aetherpool.

Unless I get a fixed party of people with around the same aetherpool levels I have (which won't be easy), I don't see how that would differ (regarding what I mentioned) from a mixed party.
I'm just saying from a new person perspective (which new person would be doing 1-10 first, then the others, and thus not getting to 101+ for a little while), this is an absolute borefest. I realize most people here probably aren't thinking of that experience, and you're more worried about the higher levels, but when new/returning people feel useless from the get-go, it makes them not want to do things, so that matters too. I'm dreading running it again because of how boring of an experience that was.

[Nixxe]

Unless I get a fixed party of people with around the same aetherpool levels I have (which won't be easy), I don't see how that would differ (regarding what I mentioned) from a mixed party.
I'm just saying from a new person perspective (which new person would be doing 1-10 first, then the others, and thus not getting to 101+ for a little while), this is an absolute borefest. I realize most people here probably aren't thinking of that experience, and you're more worried about the higher levels, but when new/returning people feel useless from the get-go, it makes them not want to do things, so that matters too. I'm dreading running it again because of how boring of an experience that was.

Because you can't go past floor 100 in a matched party. Aetherpool only goes up to 99/99, which you can use in its entirety on the last few floors of 91-100. Beyond that aetherpool stops scaling while the dungeon keeps scaling. 101+ is basically the "challenge" floors, though I'm not sure exactly how difficult it gets as I haven't gotten around to trying it. Even with a low aetherpool party, 1-100 will never really get hard unless you are woefully under"geared" and have a bad comp to boot (like four DPS, none of which have off-heals). Even then, if you just make good use of poms and do mechanics, it still falls over.

Even with no aetherpool buffs, 1-10 falls over in a hurry. The first time I did PotD it was solo on a PLD and I was still 2-3 shotting most of the mobs. Palace of the Dead had been out a while when I came back, so I had the same experience you did of being brand new in the midst of people who had been speed running it for months. I'm just saying I don't really think the mismatch of aetherpool levels is really what makes it boring. Still, try out some of the later floors and see how you feel about it. You gain 20 levels in the first 10 generally speaking (highest level I've been was 23 I think), while they highest level mob is only like 16. As you go through the later sets, this will reconverge until you hit the cap of 60 around floor 50 or so.

[Squintina]

Because you can't go past floor 100 in a matched party. Aetherpool only goes up to 99/99, which you can use in its entirety on the last few floors of 91-100. Beyond that aetherpool stops scaling while the dungeon keeps scaling. 101+ is basically the "challenge" floors, though I'm not sure exactly how difficult it gets as I haven't gotten around to trying it. Even with a low aetherpool party, 1-100 will never really get hard unless you are woefully under"geared" and have a bad comp to boot (like four DPS, none of which have off-heals). Even then, if you just make good use of poms and do mechanics, it still falls over.

Even with no aetherpool buffs, 1-10 falls over in a hurry. The first time I did PotD it was solo on a PLD and I was still 2-3 shotting most of the mobs. Palace of the Dead had been out a while when I came back, so I had the same experience you did of being brand new in the midst of people who had been speed running it for months. I'm just saying I don't really think the mismatch of aetherpool levels is really what makes it boring. Still, try out some of the later floors and see how you feel about it. You gain 20 levels in the first 10 generally speaking (highest level I've been was 23 I think), while they highest level mob is only like 16. As you go through the later sets, this will reconverge until you hit the cap of 60 around floor 50 or so.

So what you're saying is POTD is boring at the beginning regardless of what anyone has.

That's not much better either, especially since new players might not buy all the expansions right away and there is a floor cap of 40 for anyone who doesn't have expansions yet (which why would a new player buy them early if there isn't a major discount, and they don't know yet if they'll play long enough to warrant the extra purchases).

I guess I just won't do POTD unless I'm tired and not in the mood to do anything that requires thinking.

[Nixxe]

So what you're saying is POTD is boring at the beginning regardless of what anyone has.

That's not much better either, especially since new players might not buy all the expansions right away and there is a floor cap of 40 for anyone who doesn't have expansions yet (which why would a new player buy them early if there isn't a major discount, and they don't know yet if they'll play long enough to warrant the extra purchases).

I guess I just won't do POTD unless I'm tired and not in the mood to do anything that requires thinking.

Yeah, I find it pretty boring. I only did it as much as I did because it was the fastest way to level DPS alts. If this is your first character and your first class, I probably wouldn't even touch it.

/shrug

It appeals to some in and of itself. There's other content in the game. I don't really consider it a problem if the early going isn't the best thing I've ever done. I didn't know about the floor cap though.