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

[ForteNightshade]

I don't understand the people who say they want optional/non-linear stuff in the dungeons because they are boring but also say they will just do the optional stuff if it grants them (in their opinion) high rewards as compensation for doing the extra stuff. So do they want more variety to make dungeons less boring/linear or just an easy way to get more rewards for very little more "effort"/time? Shouldn't the fact of more variety in dungeons be enough of a reward?

Because at that point, you're adding variety for variety sake. Say they included winding pathways, some lore tidbits and even a sort of mini-boss. After going through everything a handful of times, what incentive do I have to keep going down these pathways or fighting this weaker boss when I've seen it all? The whole point of rewards is to give a tangible reason to repeat things you've already done. Killing the Coeurl in Brayflux is pointless after the novelty wears off since he offers nothing and is ultimately a slightly stronger trash mob. If my reward for going down that pathway is a X-Potion. Well, once I've seen the aesthetic a couple times, I no longer care. I have no reason to.

[Melichoir]

Because at that point, you're adding variety for variety sake. Say they included winding pathways, some lore tidbits and even a sort of mini-boss. After going through everything a handful of times, what incentive do I have to keep going down these pathways or fighting this weaker boss when I've seen it all? The whole point of rewards is to give a tangible reason to repeat things you've already done. Killing the Coeurl in Brayflux is pointless after the novelty wears off since he offers nothing and is ultimately a slightly stronger trash mob. If my reward for going down that pathway is a X-Potion. Well, once I've seen the aesthetic a couple times, I no longer care. I have no reason to.

The issue then is incentive structures and dungeon design.

There's a few ways they could do this. You could have an optional boss that gives current crafting mats that are difficult to get or possibly a BOP glamour as a RNG drop on top of gear of course.

The optional boss doesnt spawn randomly, nor does it spawn all the time. Some triggers might have to be started to get it spawn, such as beat 3 mini bosses within an allotted time, or clear out certain areas of the dungeon of trash mobs and hit a switch or two. Maybe you have to speed kill everything up to that point. Or the boss spawns, you engage, then it runs off through trash mobs to another location and you either clear its path before hand or fight your way through the mobs before the boss despawns.

There's lots of interesting things you can do to make the dungeon more interesting in that regards, and having bonus rewards that make it worth while to do is the key to this. Hell you dont even have to create sub bosses to make dungeons a bit more interesting. Creating multiple branching paths in a dungeon where the path you take is randomly chosen when you enter and the paths all have different things to deal with, so at the very least youre not autopiloting it. Or have dungeons designed in a fashion after PoTD with mobs, monsters and what not. It may not offer new rewards but atleast it's not killing my brain with retreading the exact 100% same path every single time.