Why can't Dungeons be longer/harder, but more... piecework?

[Shurrikhan]

I liked ARR’s dungeon pace. TWO dungeons per patch (one MSQ, one optional). They were still as immersive as the later ones mentioned earlier in this thread.

As far as optional parts to the dungeons, OF COURSE they are going to be skipped over by most people. The DUNGEON DROPS are generally skipped over by most people, let alone crafting gear that needs to be repaired or relic bits once one’s done with that relic. Make optional portions of the dungeon THAT DROP TOMESTONES and people will start to do them. Tomestones are the main reason people run the things after their first visit, after all. Right now, dungeon drops generally serve to pay retainers, and that’s all.

I for one would love to see a dungeon run give Tomestones per chest, and a few extra on the side path (enough that visiting it will give you an additional 15% of the tomestones). Give everyone in the dungeon a job-usable drop as an auto reward for beating the final boss, subject to the Unique tags on the gear. If and only if they have every single piece of that gear set, then start giving out randomly selected pieces usable by other jobs.

I'm wondering what the full extent of that would look like under optimized practice, though? Does that just turn into players each splitting up into n groups, running into their respective side-paths, looting, and retreating into an AoE gather? I could imagine the novelty if we could still lock out mobs like back in Wanderer's Palace spams, but, again, while we can certainly make people actually do side-paths (at least those who won't cap off just the daily roulette bonus alone), what is that gameplay actually going to look like? Something new, different, is usually but not necessarily better, and not back-tracking does at least have some aesthetic advantages.

Just a bit more food for thought: Can we reward tomes for using (or preparing) different options? Let's say in a given dungeon we have to get past a chasm. We can do this via swinging across, which requires us a rope, or by lowering the drawbridge, which in old Wanderer's Palace fashion, requires lubricant on the lever assembly. There's a special section of your Key Items that is just for dungeon stuff. The more the party has collected while you've been there, the more tomes you get when you complete, quit out, or maybe even are kicked out of a dungeon. In that way, it works like the chests, but at least it doesn't always look like a chest, for a bit more variance and hopefully engagement.