Where is the "never before seen content"?

[JunseiKei]

As has been said before, the rhythm right now is such that many are forced to take breaks. If I wasn't so fond of hunting (content that's meant to be a grind and nothing actually new) I really wouldn't have had anything to do even now that they finally introduced Heaven on High, and how long did we have to wait for that? Eureka was such a horrible content lull most of my friends ended up on a break despite new content being released with that patch. The rhythm may be steady, but so is a patient's heartbeat right before the final, long, steady "dooooooooooo".

Before we used to get two new dungeons to grind in Expert roulette every so often. Now, we have to wait twice as long for that new content, and in between we get more of the same content with MAYBE once in a while a different dungeon. When people already MAYBE log in daily to run that thing, it exponentially worsens burnout. Go back to where the game forces you to take breaks, rather than permits it.

That's fine. Breaks are good. Not everything needs to be constant, least you get burned out on it. I know some people play MMOs (or games in general) like addicts. Just because some people have an unhealthy addiction does not mean every business needs to capitalize on this addiction.

A dungeon is a dungeon. I don't care if it's 1 new dungeon a patch or 50 - they're all mindless after one or two runs and get boring fast. Quantity doesn't matter. It's content, yes, but I wouldn't ever call a dungeon riveting. I throw it in the same pile as perform - appeals to some, but it's fluff. Especially when SE forced means of stopping speedruns (I still recall doing Brayflox HM in 5 minutes to the first two bosses; under 10 for the whole dungeon at level 50).

In terms of "shaking it up", I'm not thinking of impossible asks like re-inventing combat from the ground up or adding a 1000-man boss fight. Working within the systems have have been established, we could have...

- 8-man dungeons (without the story cutscenes this time), perhaps for various goals like find the most treasure or defeat the most enemies within the time limit. PotD/HoH could have been this too, but the implementation is pretty bare and the lack of direction can cause friction within groups.
- more large-scale content that takes advantage of having a large amount of players... I remember reading about a version of "Hamlet Defense" where combat jobs would fight off hordes of enemies as crafters and gatherers would supply the defenses. That sounds cool and I would be willing to try it from a combat and DoH/DoL role.
- play to the strength of the game. XIV is all about DPS, so introduce some content that is all about how fast you can push through it. Have teams race to the finish and award some prizes. Enforce the trinity, have different modes (AoE runs, single target runs, etc.) for everyone to have a chance to shine. You could even do something crazy like having healer-specific modes that test how efficiently players use their skills to keep an NPC alive.

It would also be great to see them rely less on established mechanics. How many boss fights do we have that involve the boss going invulnerable or leaving for a period of time so we can deal with adds while they charge an attack? I lose interest in a fight as soon as the boss does that any more. Like "oh, this again...". Or all the dungeon bosses who don't care whether you ignore their mechanics or not. It's pretty sad when ARR leveling dungeons have more teeth than some of the level 70 dungeons in SB isn't it?

These wouldn't necessarily be unique to MMOs, but they would be to XIV. And with the constant stream of reskinned dungeons, bosses, and catch-up quests, it would be refreshing if they even tried to branch out a little more. So I'm not asking for a revolution or for SE to take huge risks here. Just to build on what they've already got instead of stagnating like I feel they're currently doing.

8- man dungeons do sound pretty OK.

I remember once, before ARR actually launched, FATEs were supposed to act like that, in a way. That settlements would be attacked and would have outcomes of win and loss (you see a part of this in South Shroud and the Redbelly Hive). Reflecting back on that idea, I'm glad they didn't go with this. Having things like aetherytes being disabled because not enough players were around to defend, as well as something that must be constantly upkept, sounds like a massive hassle in an MMO. Especially if you have no interest in it (and can't force players to take part in it).

That was also addressed in a LLP. The response back is that they are wary of implementing time attacks because of speed hacks and other exploits that would ruin this kind of mode. I can't really blame them; going after bots is largely an exercise in futility (I don't really want to go into the topic).

Mechanics themselves... that's a matter of personal taste, wouldn't it? A boss jumping or going invulnerable doesn't bother me. Some of the more interesting mechanics can happen doing them. My first experience with a boss jumping was T5's Twintania dives. A boss fight where bosses tend to not go invulnerable and jump tend to end up being punching bags - THAT'S where I lose interest. Unless you have interesting mechanics to pair with it (but this is largely lacking outside of raids/savage).

I can't unbiasedly weigh in ARR vs HW vs SB. I like ARR because I liked the fact that raids were directly tied to story while still being a challenge and people wanted to run things (like dungeons) with an emphasis on efficiency. Gordias savage pretty much still left a bad taste in my mouth (even though I enjoyed Alexander's fight and Cruise Chaser's). I don't have nostalgia that would probably get me more into ExDeath or Kefka's fights, but for what we've got in FFXIV, they're alright. It also largely depends on what part of each expansion you're asking, because that will change which expansion I'll answer with. (Right now, I'd answer with SB for dungeons, because after it's all said in done, love it, hate it, whatever, the second boss in Bardam's Mettle is definitely interestingt; I'd love to see more of 'alternative fights' in normal dungeons. That's not to say it didn't exist before, like the second boss in Stone Vigil hard being done with cannons rather than your job.)

Reskinned dungeons are not unique to FFXIV, unless you were referring to something else? It's a new paragraph so I'm a bit confused to which exactly you are referring to - bosses jumping or older dungeons?