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

[Shurrikhan]

Edit:

While we're at it, if anyone has any fun ideas they'd like to see to augment or even fundamentally reshape the flow of dungeons as useful for midcore-ish content without being necessarily reiterative (for the most part, let's save that for the extent threads promoting something like a less bloated/pressured Mythic+), feel free to post them.

If we end up getting some fun ideas, and this thread somehow expands beyond a page, I'll quote them here for easy viewing and linking.


CONTENTS OF THE THREAD SO FAR:

1. Theoretical discussion on reward models and their impact on how players spend their time, be it in a way that better engages with or overly narrows the variety of content we may typically do.
2. Narrowing the above discussion to dungeons in particular, both insofar as what level of experimentation is desirable and what would be feasible.
3. General and specific gameplay loops people would like to see from more experimental dungeons.
4. Feasibility of more challenging and experimental content in general.
5. Complexities of appealing to the playerbase and of player perception/reception in general.
6. To what extent must the playerbase improve by broadening their views, taking more responsibility, and to an extent conforming to whatever expectations increase variety of playstyles that can be appealed to (such as by becoming more competent, so you can engage with more of the game) before we can really see further variety in content (especially midcore difficulty or a raised difficulty floor for everyone)?

KEY QUOTES:

Give me dungeons that aren't a purely linear ordeal and I'll bother doing them again. The old cliche SE gave us when they started streamlining dungeons back in ARR was "Nobody did the optional stuff", to which I rebut; Of course they didn't, you put literally nothing worth doing behind those optional sections. Naturally players aren't going to bother with a side passage to obtain some worthless gear that's never even relevant, or worse something incredibly lame like an X-potion... A NQ X-potion...Bring back dungeons with optional side paths, puzzles, heck maybe even throw in some optional mini-bosses? Then simply slap worthwhile rewards behind them. Tie them into things like Relic quests, rather than just "Clear this dungeon" as an objective, you can make "Clear this optional boss/puzzle/whatever in this dungeon" as an objective.