Difficulty of Dungeons

[Anhra]

Greetings everyone and thanks for looking this thread up.

I'd like to talk about Dungeons here, no trials, not savage/extreme/unreal or ultimate raids, just plain old dungeons that everyone does on a daily basis.

I think there needs to be done something about them, especially about the difficulty of them, in my time playing FFXIV, i noticed the following things about them:

- they all follow the same template, a marathon track with 3 bosses and ads in between.
> why not create something original for once? Like those MSQ solo instances in shadowbringers where you had to do puzzles which could then lead to a bossfight

- 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 - Stormblood including matoyas relict, which i cleared with only a BLM, a DNC and me as SCH) or healer as well (tested it on some ARR to SB dungeons so far up to Ala Mhigo, that one my FC managed to clear with a partysetup of a GNB, DRK, BRD and NIN). 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.
> Thanks to their current behavior patterns, "unbalanced" runs as mentioned above are possible in the first place. This could easily be made more difficult by introducing way more untelegraphed attacks far early into the game (aurum vale would have been a good first dungeon which introduced this, but we all know how this ended up unfortunately) and allowing the boss to be more random by using its skills completely random (like using tankbusters or telegraphs multiple times in a row if you're unlucky enough), not only would this spice things up a little, it would also force healers to actually heal more (which i am sure that certain pure healer enthusiasts would enjoy).

- Ad's are just cannonfodder in dungeons, they do have more overall damage compared to their counterparts you see sometimes out in the field, but 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 as long as neither tank or healer falls asleep).
> 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. Using PotD/HoH as a reference point would be my recommendation in terms of how the difficulty of skills should be (floor 1-50 for ARR, 51-100 for HW, 101-150 for SB and floor 151+ for ShB and beyond).
That would force players to plan ahead and use crowd controls such as stuns more wisely later on and give a sense of accomplishment for actually clearing it.

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


Edit (30.04.2021): After some Fieldtesting as CNJ on every single Dungeon starting at Aurum Vale and beyond, i can now say for certain that it is possible to heal every Dungeon as one, even with mass pulling. It requires some timing with swiftcast on certain Dungeons such as Bardam's Mettle and Twinning, but it is completely doable.

[SiriusSaltstice]

snip

I think the problem is that dungeons are just seen by the devs as casual content at this point . And most casual content in 14 (anything with non-Savage or Ult, cause even EXs can be easy), the design philosophy is make it a faceroll.

Your points are decent, but this game doesn't incentivize or force players to understand their job or do anything complex and hard except when its hardcore content (SSS and Hall of the Novice are not even baby steps). I'd like what you're suggesting and would love new dungeon design, but ppl even struggle with the current ones and prefer streamlined content.

Which is a shame because the "1 dungeon a patch" really being "the same hallway with a new coat of paint" is just lazy. I'd just like a dungeon that isn't a hallway for one, especially no more of the ones that artificially limit wall to wall pulling to artificially extend it.

[QooEr]

leveling dungeons are actually significantly harder than endgame dungeons (not even because of the overgearing) so we could have more engaging expert dungeons realistically.

[Tinibou]

It reminds me of the hard versions of some dungeons we had regularly some time ago... I think it was one of best ideas they had because not only it was a more difficult content but they tied it with more story and lore about the place and so on. It's too bad that they didn't continue doing them...

[Anhra]

It really is unfortunate, since in ARR and HW, Squeenix was already going into the right direction with bosses, like Anchag from Amdapor Keep (hard) (the Boss that looks similar to a headless Odin) who punishes people who don't pay attention with his tether or the FORMER Coincounter from Aurum Vale which had all of his Skills non-telegraphed as it should be.

Hell, even after replaying the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles remake it made me realize that this old Gamecube game has better designed Dungeons than FFXIV.

[DrWho2010]

dungeons are supposed to be get in, get out though. I don't want to be spending upwards of 45 minutes in one.

[MrThinker]

It reminds me of the hard versions of some dungeons we had regularly some time ago... I think it was one of best ideas they had because not only it was a more difficult content but they tied it with more story and lore about the place and so on. It's too bad that they didn't continue doing them...

Part of the reason they could do that back then was a different design philosophy in dungeons, where they made large areas and then programmed one or two routes that would be used in the actual instance. This left other routes and areas that could be utilised in hard modes.

The newer dungeons, as far as we are told, don't have those pre-existing unused areas in exchange for that cinematic feel, so making hard modes of those would require actually making entirely new dungeon assets, rather than redesigning existing ones.

[Anhra]

dungeons are supposed to be get in, get out though. I don't want to be spending upwards of 45 minutes in one.

The average clear time of any Dungeon run is 12-15 Minutes if you run with a balanced Party. Even if my ideas we're all inplimented into the game, they would increase that Time maybe by 5-10 Minutes at best, provided we still get the same Marathon Track with 3 Bosses.

And how much time you end up spending in there, depends completely on you and your team. And if Dungeons are such a bother for you, that you aren't prepared to spent in there more time than it is sometimes necessary, you should evaluate a little about your personal priorities in a video game and what makes it fun.

[DrWho2010]

dungeons are fun the first few times sure. after that, when it gets into the hundreds of times, you value efficiency more than fun. of course this is also dependent on how long one has been playing the game.

[Anhra]

dungeons are fun the first few times sure. after that, when it gets into the hundreds of times, you value efficiency more than fun. of course this is also dependent on how long one has been playing the game.

Yet something like that shouldn't be a excuse to get lazy with the design of things. I am not asking for Rocketscience here, i am merely suggesting to keep People on their Toes instead of every Dungeon being the same snoozefest over and over again.

Also keep in mind that even with changes like this, you can still figure things out on how to clear it asap, it just means that you need to start over figuring it out, with the possibility of maybe having to spent some extra minutes, which is but a small price to pay.