Difficulty of Dungeons

[ZanderaSommers]

- they all follow the same template, a marathon track with 3 bosses and ads in between.

- overall difficulty is too easy, in every expansion.
> it is easy enough that you can clear them even with a tank missing (tested it so far in most dungeons in ARR...Oh, and we're talking about sync'd (no undersized party at max level) runs of course.

-Bosses are far too predictable and don't do enough overall damage.

- Ad's are just cannonfodder in dungeons, ...not enough to be a actual thread, allowing you to pull the entire set as a "balanced" party (tank,heal and the 2 deeps) without much consequences...
> strenghen them, and i mean alot (maybe even double their current damage on auto attacks) Normally in MMO's, dungeon ads hit really hard with their auto attacks and use skills that could easily threaten the whole party if not dealt with accordingly...

Those are my two cents on the matter, what do you guys think about it?

This is an interesting topic to chat about. Thanks for posting.

Two things about me: (1) I'm a new player so have only been doing dungeons in ARR and post-ARR content so far, and (2) I enjoy dungeons and will queue to do them just for fun, even if I don't need the EXP.

From the perspective of a relatively new player, (i.e. I don't have overtuned equipment,) I actually find the dungeons are difficult for new players, such as how many groups the tank pulls and unknown mob and boss abilities or mechanics. I notice in particular it can be pretty tough on inexperienced healers. I think part of it is also in leveling roulette, a lot of your abilities are taken away even if you're leveled past that point. I think the ARR dungeons are interesting and balanced well for new players to get involved and learn their role while providing a challenge.

To Anhra's first point that dungeons follow the same template, I noticed that level 50 dungeons (in the beginning of the 6/5/7 roulette) have a much more straightforward layout with less chance to take a wrong turn. I personally lament the more straightforward layout. As a player that specifically likes dungeons and learning their quirks, they became less intriguing. (I've heard from friends that it gets even simpler as the story progresses blah)...so I agree it would be good to have more variety, though I don't share the details on the grievances.

It's true the dungeon content has been there for a while, but quite a bit of love and attention went into creating them, including mechanics. I think that's something to not forget. While perhaps not keeping the exactly layout the same 100% of the time, I also like the cadence with 3 bosses in between mobs since it helps new players know what to expect, even if they haven't done the dungeon before.

[Vyrerus]

I'd like to talk about Dungeons

Unfortunately, the playerbase decided a long time ago that they don't want a modicum of challenge in their dungeons. When Pharos Sirius first came out, 3 out of 4 of its bosses were deemed to be more difficult than Ifrit Hard Mode and Garuda Hard Mode by the playerbase.

The response was basically, whenever you queued into it for your... was it still expert back then? I think it was just high level roulette. Anyway, you queue in, and instantly people would leave. It really wasn't that bad of a dungeon, because even prior to its nerfs, you could roll in there with 3 DPS and a Healer and clear it just fine(though Siren was a bit rough).

It had all of the stuff you're asking for. Faster, non-telegraphed attacks. Dangerous adds. The necessity for paced interrupts. Unique, never before seen debuffs(some of which have never been reused). Dangerous problem monsters in trash. Even got in on a little interactive dungeoneering with the two valves you have to close to access the third boss (granted they are just on the train track going up to it).

If they implement your changes, then they have to create new dungeons and a new roulette entirely(or keep said dungeons out of the roulette). For every person like you(and me) that they satisfy by making more engaging/challenging standard content, twenty more will shriek that the game shouldn't be that demanding. Shriek that their time isn't being respected. Shriek that it should get a brutal label and be its own vein of content. It's sad, but the more the game is brought to the mainstream, the less challenging all of its standard content will be.

Also the stat squish in 6.0 is not for the player's benefit. It is for the dev team's, so that they can reuse old calculations for balancing purposes. /shrug

[Jirah]

Unfortunately, the playerbase decided a long time ago that they don't want a modicum of challenge in their dungeons. When Pharos Sirius first came out, 3 out of 4 of its bosses were deemed to be more difficult than Ifrit Hard Mode and Garuda Hard Mode by the playerbase.

The response was basically, whenever you queued into it for your... was it still expert back then? I think it was just high level roulette. Anyway, you queue in, and instantly people would leave. It really wasn't that bad of a dungeon, because even prior to its nerfs, you could roll in there with 3 DPS and a Healer and clear it just fine(though Siren was a bit rough).

It had all of the stuff you're asking for. Faster, non-telegraphed attacks. Dangerous adds. The necessity for paced interrupts. Unique, never before seen debuffs(some of which have never been reused). Dangerous problem monsters in trash. Even got in on a little interactive dungeoneering with the two valves you have to close to access the third boss (granted they are just on the train track going up to it).

If they implement your changes, then they have to create new dungeons and a new roulette entirely(or keep said dungeons out of the roulette). For every person like you(and me) that they satisfy by making more engaging/challenging standard content, twenty more will shriek that the game shouldn't be that demanding. Shriek that their time isn't being respected. Shriek that it should get a brutal label and be its own vein of content. It's sad, but the more the game is brought to the mainstream, the less challenging all of its standard content will be.

Also the stat squish in 6.0 is not for the player's benefit. It is for the dev team's, so that they can reuse old calculations for balancing purposes. /shrug

i swear ive seen word for word the same response in another post, may i have a link to these complaints?

also pharos is 100% skippable u dont need it to continue on, also games aiming for the broadest appeal is a massive mistake you will never please everyone for every dungoen like relict with laughable bad adds and mediocre difficulty for 1 that enjoyed it twenty will roll there eyes at another bore to do rouletes in. same can be said there as most people who liked relict the best they can say is "its quick" Its pretty" Its music is nice" superficial stuff. Relict is 80 and Pharos is 50 and to this day pharos is more fun. Yall either reach for Cape westwind or savage we need middle ground!

[Vyrerus]

i swear ive seen word for word the same response in another post, may i have a link to these complaints?

Just go diving into forum posts from early 2014, if they're still around. You'll see this sort of post echoed every time this is brought up, because it's brought up a lot, and the situation's not going to change. Pharos Sirius came out, the people on these forums at the time issued a mass outcry about its difficulty, and it got nerfed a couple of months later, just prior to Tomes of Philosophy being nixed.

At the time, Pharos Sirius was part of the high end roulette for weekly capped tomes. It was harder back then. If you think it's still more fun, in spite of being a 9 minute roflstomp... I don't know what to tell you.

[Jirah]

Just go diving into forum posts from early 2014, if they're still around. You'll see this sort of post echoed every time this is brought up, because it's brought up a lot, and the situation's not going to change. Pharos Sirius came out, the people on these forums at the time issued a mass outcry about its difficulty, and it got nerfed a couple of months later, just prior to Tomes of Philosophy being nixed.

At the time, Pharos Sirius was part of the high end roulette for weekly capped tomes. It was harder back then. If you think it's still more fun, in spite of being a 9 minute roflstomp... I don't know what to tell you.

if u think the alternative to not even attempt to test the players skill in the only 4 man content in ShB, having less of them than in ARR, thats whatever. idk and idc if it was too hard
thats in the past, dungeons should at the very least be interesting to play having less means itll be harder to make a good one to not bore people and they completely flooped on that by disregarding any engagement with the bosses starting to wane and become repetitive. it would do the game zero damage to make them even slightly more unque disregarding the past

[Iscah]

Also the stat squish in 6.0 is not for the player's benefit. It is for the dev team's, so that they can reuse old calculations for balancing purposes. /shrug

The stat squish is so that numbers don't get so big they literally break the program's ability to handle them.

[Vyrerus]

The stat squish is so that numbers don't get so big they literally break the program's ability to handle them.

Did they say how big that is, because that's not any of the reasons I heard them give about it. It also doesn't make sense within the context of modern computing either. There's also the fact that they've been letting us do hundreds of thousands of damage since Eureka in Stormblood, and now with Blue Mage and Basic Instinct.

Either way, it's for their benefit, not ours.

[Iscah]

Did they say how big that is, because that's not any of the reasons I heard them give about it. It also doesn't make sense within the context of modern computing either. There's also the fact that they've been letting us do hundreds of thousands of damage since Eureka in Stormblood, and now with Blue Mage and Basic Instinct.

It doesn't matter whether the limit is hundreds of thousands or just hundreds, at some point there is a limit and they're in danger of hitting it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_overflow

Simply put, as a concept, if the maximum it can handle is 999,999,999 and you make it do something that adds to 1,000,000,005 it has nowhere to put that additional 1 and it does not compute. Your damage is now 5.

I'm pretty sure they talked about something that would line up with this issue when they were first announcing their plans for the stat squish.

[Vyrerus]

It doesn't matter whether the limit is hundreds of thousands or just hundreds, at some point there is a limit and they're in danger of hitting it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_overflow

Simply put, as a concept, if the maximum it can handle is 999,999,999 and you make it do something that adds to 1,000,000,005 it has nowhere to put that additional 1 and it does not compute. Your damage is now 5.

I'm pretty sure they talked about something that would line up with this issue when they were first announcing their plans for the stat squish.

I know what an overflow error is, thanks. They're really common in old games, and in breaking old games to do funny things. A relevant FF example is using multiple buffs with Hero's Drinks and things in FFVII to create an ATP overflow error, which has the damage of an attack display in the broken integer in text rather than numeral, causing things like one shotting the Emerald Weapon.

All I remember them saying when they announced the stat squish was that damage numbers were getting ridiculous, and that they didn't want to start truncating the damage values to make the screen look nicer. You know, dropping every number after a certain point and putting thinks like, 1.2m damage or 1200k damage and stuff. They want to have an orderly looking game, rather than inflated values.

Look at the concept, "Saturation Arithmetic" in your own link. That's what the game currently does to handle maximum or minimum damage values. In Eureka when you use the Limit Break against a minimum level monster when you are maximum level for a zone, the LB2 will deal 999,999 damage. Mathematically given the damage calculations going on in there, it should be able to go higher, but it can't.

The reason they want to implement the stat squish is so that this limit becomes less apparent. Currently at i510+ our melee limit break 3s in normal content are doing upwards of 770,000 or so damage. Realistically in the 90 cap era this means the LB3s would shoot up to that maximum of 999,999 damage. Even the ranged or caster ones may, meaning that limit would become readily apparent, and melee LB would lose its advantage. They then also have to contend with individual DPS being so high that the DPS LBs might lose their advantage altogether. The squish pushes us away from that limit, allowing them to leave their calculations and things largely unaltered, reusing them.

This also means they don't even have to double check every ability that does damage in the game, and then ensure that it has the cap criteria on it.

They also talked about boss HP values being overly ridiculous. If there's any concern for an overflow error, it would be the type caused by boss HP, but we don't have the means to overflow boss HP, since we aren't allowed to heal bosses. So that too is just something they're worried for, for their end, not ours.

[Payadopa]

I regularly run min ilvl stuff with my mates and is the most fun I have with dungeons.
I don't care about the rewards as long as I have a good time which seems to be an alien concept to your typical MMO player.

I wish we had a DF min ilvl. Would be optional like MSQ roulette and certainly more fun.