Increasing difficulty in casual content ≠ Savage

[KaivaC]

ID quite like dungeons with more to them. At the moment most of them just feel like (and are) big pull up to boss, kill boss. Repeat.

I'd like dungeons with more mechanics in them on the trash pulls. Something to make them interesting. Temple of the fist has something like this with the exploding goo and the blocks that push you off the ledge but the goo patches are so small you can easily avoid them and the aoe on the blocks are so narrow and take so long you're half way up the hill and fighting the bear before they even push out.

I do like the build up to the first boss in Hells Lid for this reason, as a caster I'm always having to move and manage enocian in this and it's more challenging than the usual "i'll pop myself here and let rip" tactic. However, after that section it goes back to plain old massive pull, find a spot, let rip, fight boss and move on.

Why can't we have something like needing to find a key to open a door but instead of it dropping from an enemy it moves around with each new instance. Would that be possible? Would prevent it dropping in trash pulls and prevent it being in the same spot every time. meaning we can't just steamroll from point A to B. Quicker AOE, more environmental interaction/AOE (like temple or hells lid mentioned)

Agreed. Dungeons are just incredibly stale. Like, forget even talking about increasing difficulty for the moment, every dungeon follows the exact same formula of mobs, AOE, reset, boss, reset. Honestly, even if the devs increase diffculty, to them, it'll be be mobs one-shotting tanks, which is not true difficulty - it's fake difficulty. I'd love the devs to get away from that so that the opportunity for actual difficulty can be introduced. Admittedly, even ideas that I've shared in the past can't be implemented if the devs keep taking the exact same approach to dungeon designs. Damn being afraid of veering away from the standard formula - if they were that damn afraid, they wouldn't keep harping on about Diadem in a new form called 'Eureka' with a FFXI flavor. The game has gotten to the point where they can experiment with an extra dungeon in each patch cycle that fits the higher difficulty without introducing fake difficulty. I feel that if it were so taxing on development that we lose out on a dungeon every patch, we'd have seen something different with Hell's Lid and Fractal Continuum. Yes, there was Eureka, and now Heaven-On-High coming up. But the last two dungeons were literally a copy-paste with different art.

I don't buy it.

Everything would feel less stale if they actually gave some up on making everything perfectly in-line with their one true vision. They should add some random stats, like 5%-10% of the gears normal stats, as a bonus to every piece that drops. At that amount it's not significant enough to impact balancing in any serious manner while giving incentive and SOME excitement to every run of content. Secondary stats may also be chosen at random. Have a piece with Spell Speed and Piety but don't like piety?! Go ahead and try to get that same piece with critical hit and spell speed. Or maybe determination and critical hit. The amounts would be the same (aka. if the piece gives 150 to one secondary and 90 to other secondary it would always be 150 and 90) but it would give actual variety.

Leave totally fixed stats for special gears like the ones gotten from quests.


Additional difficulties would be nice as well, sure. It's a pain that only 4-man content available is just ridiculously easy and straightforward most of the time. And I say that despite knowing people that have issues remembering or even following basic mechanics. Too bad. People get better by trying, so if they'll have to, they'll get used to it.
But those would need actual point. Adding new set of gears in them would only increase the problem as there would be a need to spreading the ilevels even more apart to maintain the balancing methods that developers want. That's why THAT is what needs to change first and foremost. Increase variety, not decrease it as they try to do.

The gear idea has some potential...except for that staggering difference between 4.2's 325 gear, the 330 gear that outweighs it in Rabanastre (seriously...why is the 24man raid released back in October still outgearing the latest dungeon) and the 370 gear in Sigma Savage. Gear means absolutely nothing by the time of the next patch, because the gear levels just keep going up. The devs need to stop with the insane gear progression that occurs with every patch. I'm not saying that the savage gear should not outweigh 24man and dungeon drops, but good grief...right now, the dungeon gear is quite literally next to useless when, for most players, you should be geared enough that by the time you finish Shinryu and your 70 job quest, you can just hop into Rabanastre and be fine because so many other players will outgear it. Gear needs to mean something again. Right now, particular for those who want to be gear beyond 330, the only stuff that matters is relics, Byakko weapons, and the Diamond sets (some of which aren't even BiS).