Dungeons need some spice!

[Vidu]

What "people"? This is the oldest excuse in book for any content creator.
Let's be honest. It is more demanding and time consuming to create "interesting" stuff and it doesn't sell nearly as well as new glams on Mogstation.

Look, I like many things about FFXIV, but normal dungeon design is incomparably weaker that what WoW or LotRO had 10+ years ago.

Friggin Scarlet Monastery in WoW or Barrow Downs in LoTRO had more challenge and atmosphere than the lifeless corridors of any FFXIV dungeon past lvl 50.
And those were very low level instances, no need to pull out heavyweights like BRD, Stratholme or some Mines of Moria dungeons.

It is one of the biggest weakspots of FFXIV (the other being atrocious MSQ cutscene direction/presentation in ARR).

The kind of people who purposly didnt unlock the original Pharos to keep it out of their roulette (and the people who told new players to avoid unlocking said dungeon to keep it out of their roulettes) because it was deemed - for some erason - "difficult" until it got nerfed. If I remember correctly this was also the reason they changed expert roulette so that you have to have all dungeons for it unlocked - to prevent people from simply not playing by the roulette-rules.
I was always quite unhappy about it because I happen(d) to like that dungeon but getting in roulette back then was extremly rare and even if you got it you ended up with people leaving and/or complaining about it.

Its not that I dont agree with you - though seeing people in level 60+ content failing some very basic mechanics makes me question the desire for more difficult dungeons - but I've seen enough complaints by various people to know that its not gonna happen. If we're lucky we might end up with some 100% optional, difficult 4-man content (something like the later floors of PotD and HoH, just with less RNG and more skill), but normal dungeons are never gonna get difficult again.

[RylaBee]

Snip..

Thank you for the info.

One note thou: I'm assuming that the thing people were afraid of was wiping on bosses specifically.
That is not necessarily what I mean by interesting dungeon design.

What I mean, is giving the place sense of purpose, non-linearity and having actually difficult trash, that needs to be correctly pulled and crowd-controlled if necessary.
SE seem to be morbidly afraid of creating difficult trash, that would need any consideration beyond being time-sink on the road to next boss.
That is why many players just purposefully pull wall-to-wall to create at least bit of excitement.

[Vyrerus]

Thank you for the info.

One note thou: I'm assuming that the thing people were afraid of was wiping on bosses specifically.
That is not necessarily what I mean by interesting dungeon design.

What I mean, is giving the place sense of purpose, non-linearity and having actually difficult trash, that needs to be correctly pulled and crowd-controlled if necessary.
SE seem to be morbidly afraid of creating difficult trash, that would need any consideration beyond being time-sink on the road to next boss.
That is why many players just purposefully pull wall-to-wall to create at least bit of excitement.

Again, this was something they implemented in earlier dungeons, where if you did not stun or silence certain monsters in the trash pack, they could potentially be a wipe cause by confusing the healer. In Pharos Sirius there were several. The first were the uhh, 4 legged fish dog things around the first corner that spit vulnerability water on the tank eventually. In entry gear if you walled to wall, you ran into a pirate barber and two fish dogs. The barbers heal the entire pack and the fish dogs make the tank take more damage.

After the first boss if you wall to walled, you got multiple Corrupted Sprites, capable of casting Banishga III. If it went off, it dealt 3~4k damage to everyone in the group, depending on job(sorry original DRG with lower Mdef than Gatherers). This meant, a one shot for most DPS or healers if they were in bare minimum entry gear. If you wall to wall'd you also ran into another pirate barber on top of two of those sprites. Needless to say, if the sprites weren't stopped and the barber wasn't killed promptly, you were going to wipe on trash, and many people did.

Pharos Sirius also had side rooms with extra treasure. While still mostly linear, the dungeon spiraled up, because it is a lighthouse. You couldn't get map completion for it without visiting the siderooms. It also sported 4 bosses instead of the typical 3.