Qarn..

[ZeSeKa]

Why, oh why is this one such a source of frustration...

-End game players that fail to grasp how Doom works

-Undergeared Tanks that pull half of the dungeon

-Getting final sting'd constantly

-Attacking the Golem, not the Soulstone

-Standing in the Adjus mirror waves

It really kills any joy I might have with it. I guess I'll skip this dungeon in the future... Is every late game dungeon like that?

[ItMe]

Nah, some of the early ARR dungeons are a little wonky, and because of that SQEX streamlined a lot of the later stuff.
Quarn throws a surprising number of new mechanics at players, but not only do they rein in how much new shit is thrown at you in later dungeons, they also do a better job at designing them so it's more apparent what you need to learn / do.
The ones that'll probably make you saddest in this respect are Quarn and most of the level 50 optional dungeons.

[Absurdity]

I would say this can be attributed more towards the DF players you got than the dungeon itself.


On the first boss you can see the doom going out and one of the platforms lighting up, you can also see that the doom can't be cleansed so logic would dictate that you have to do something with those platforms. Sure you might die the first time but if you actually bother to read what your debuff is you should be able to figure it out.
Same with the golem, if your damage numbers popping up seem irregular, a.i. very low or flat out 0, you think people would notice that something is wrong and then maybe also notice that there is another separate target.


The mechanics in that dungeon aren't hard, people just can't be bothered to learn and those early dungeons require you to either adapt or simply die. God forbid someone dies to a dungeon mechanic or you actually wipe for once.
And max level players failing this just tells you that just because someone leveled to 80 doesn't mean they actually know what they're doing.

[ItMe]

To be fair though, that's a fair amount of paying attention they're asking new players to do at that level.
Heck, when I was in Quarn for the first time I barely understood my class and just trying to perform basic combos took up a lot of my attention.
I kept dying to that miniboss because when the platform would light up, either it wouldn't be onscreen or I'd be watching something else and not notice it.
When the bees came up, I wouldn't even see them cast final sting and I was really confused why I kept dying.

No, the mechanics aren't hard, but every part of Quarn hits new players with multiple new mechanics, which can be tough if the player is still getting their feet under them.
If everything is still new it's hard to parse a barrage of new info.

[Absurdity]

For new players it might be a bit of a steeper hurdle but that is because of several factors. The design changes over the years made every job perform a lot better than it did when the dungeons were originally designed. You can argue that they have become a lot more boring at lower levels (something that I would agree with) but their performance in terms of dps output has increased by a lot, this means that in most low level dungeons you rarely even see a boss perform more than 1 or 2 mechanics, even if they have more. So by the time you do not completely stomp them anymore and have to actually deal with mechanics it can easily overwhelm new players because they never had to do so before during their leveling experience.


Another issue is that because of how quickly you level nowadays there is no reason to go out in the overworld and do levequests or fates anymore since there are quicker ways of gaining exp. This does however mean that you'll probably be completely unfamiliar with new enemies in a dungeon and what they can do.

Let's take Final Sting as an example. If you would've leveled the way you did back in ARR, the time those dungeons were designed, you probably would've already encountered wasps before by the time you get into Qarn, be it for a levequest or a fate. Those may not have had Final Sting but they did have some kind of sting ability that you know you can interrupt by stunning them. This isn't the case anymore.


These dungeons are basically relics of the past and of a slightly different design philosophy, maybe they're in need of an overhaul as well.
Jobs have however been significantly simplified which gives you more time to concentrate on what mechanics the enemies do, this is especially the case for jobs below level 50.


And even if you die to them once or twice, what's the harm? I think the "you go in, you fight, you die, you learn, you try again" design is a pretty good one. If people are willing to learn then they might die to Final Sting or Doom once or twice but the 3rd time they know to either nuke or stun the wasps and to get on the platform.

[ItMe]

These dungeons are basically relics of the past and of a slightly different design philosophy, maybe they're in need of an overhaul as well.

That's an interesting thought.
I mean, the dev's philosophy is that it's old stuff there's not enough worth in touching it (one of the reasons they've given for why they haven't adjusted old hunt marks to scale up with the expacs), but if they did revamp the old dungeons I wonder what they'd do with them...

[MistakeNot]

Why, oh why is this one such a source of frustration...

-End game players that fail to grasp how Doom works

-Undergeared Tanks that pull half of the dungeon

-Getting final sting'd constantly

-Attacking the Golem, not the Soulstone

-Standing in the Adjus mirror waves

It really kills any joy I might have with it. I guess I'll skip this dungeon in the future... Is every late game dungeon like that?

What you list are not problems with the dungeon. They are all problems with the players.

[MistakeNot]

That's an interesting thought.
I mean, the dev's philosophy is that it's old stuff there's not enough worth in touching it (one of the reasons they've given for why they haven't adjusted old hunt marks to scale up with the expacs), but if they did revamp the old dungeons I wonder what they'd do with them...

Hopefully nothing. It is the newer dungeons that could benefit from being brought back to the older design philosophy.

[Kiarin]

Hopefully nothing. It is the newer dungeons that could benefit from being brought back to the older design philosophy.

Hopefully nothing, yes. Quarn is, imo, one of the best designed dungeons in the game. Why the heck revamp it, and most important, how? Remove doom, final sting and golem's heart because they are "too difficult" to notice? I don't know what would be the point to play the game then, with such philosophy...

[Shurrikhan]

Nah, some of the early ARR dungeons are a little wonky, and because of that SQEX streamlined a lot of the later stuff.

Alternatively, since ARR the devs (not corporate honchos who have nothing directly to do with the game design, but the actual devs responsible for dungeon content) have noticeably dumbed down dungeons. This, in turn, has led to many dumbed down dungeon-runners.