Dungeons we need to talk dungeons

[Vrankyl]

For those who don't think players will laser focus the quickest and most optimal route well... I hope you get to keep your innocence. The reality of it is that optimal and speed is the name of the game these days. Let's just take a look over to WoW with it's M+ content. Not only is it timed to make it harder (which encourages fast routes) but tanks are practically required to be running an Addon that calculates the most optimal route in higher keys. Unfortunately, if SE were to create harder dungeons stuff like this would start cropping up here. Maybe not in the form of addons, but this time rather guides and required pathing.

As far the harking back to the days of ARR Hard modes... we remember these very differently. Trying to get a group to complete Arum Vale and Pharos Sirius Hard pre nerf was... good luck. More often than not you'd go through at least three tanks in Arum Vale before one stuck it out, and getting a group to finish Pharos Sirius was hell. I don't know about you, but for me the rewards would have to justify the pain one would be required to go through to finish. While such an experience can be fun with friends, the moment you toss in a pug it is game over.

[Kacho_Nacho]

For those who don't think players will laser focus the quickest and most optimal route well... I hope you get to keep your innocence. The reality of it is that optimal and speed is the name of the game these days.

Thanks! I enjoy my innocence and don't want just anyone to take it from me.

Optimal and speed may be the name of the game now; but, it doesn't need to be in the future. It's all in how you design the reward structure.

If you are reward exp and gil for completing the instance, players will want to complete the duty in the least amount of time.

However, if you place rewards throughout the instance, with the addition of obstacles in the party's ways, and offer no duty completion bonus, then players will be more inclined to search throughout the dungeon.

[Vrankyl]

However, if you place rewards throughout the instance, with the addition of obstacles in the party's ways, and offer no duty completion bonus, then players will be more inclined to search throughout the dungeon.

Unless they make these kind of dungeons a completely separate type of content from the current ones I don't see this happening. The reason this is done is to reduce the amount of people that bail midway through a dungeon. If people want the rewards they have to finish it. Nor would just splitting the tomestones up fix it either, since people would just focus on other content that can be reliable completed with a pug. As I stated, harder dungeons are a nightmare with pugs as the ARR dungeons proved.

[Anxin]

As far the harking back to the days of ARR Hard modes... we remember these very differently. Trying to get a group to complete Arum Vale and Pharos Sirius Hard pre nerf was... good luck. More often than not you'd go through at least three tanks in Arum Vale before one stuck it out, and getting a group to finish Pharos Sirius was hell. I don't know about you, but for me the rewards would have to justify the pain one would be required to go through to finish. While such an experience can be fun with friends, the moment you toss in a pug it is game over.

I used to queue Pharos as a healer in those days because I enjoyed the challenge pugs offered and wanted to help others finish it. Same with Aurum Vale (I still queue there time-to-time). For me, the reward was helping others get through the content and enjoying the differing group dynamics. Pixels and stats don't motivate me. But I realize not everyone enjoys that sort of reward. I guess that is why I favor more randomization in critter attacks and wish some mobs would play a game of "kill the healer" in dungeons: it would make random groups more dynamic.

[Nishira]

Such an interesting topic, I’ve wondered about this myself a number of times throughout the years. How can you entice players to see a dungeon run that may take a while as fun again? It used to be, what happened that dungeons can take 15 min max or people will start complaining? It’s odd to me.

Maybe design it the other way around. The longer you are in it while you clear more, the more interesting the rewards. If you clear it the fastest way possible in 20 min the rewards won’t be great. But if you are ok with spending an hour or two, the rewards get good. Maybe clearing a certain part triggers an event in another part. Maybe make it unpredictable, have different combinations of bosses, events etc so that one run will be very different from another. Some of the groundwork seems to be there with PotD and map instances, perhaps build on that.

It doesn’t have to be super difficult as long as it asks for some strategic play. Bring back a sense of the holy trinity mattering. I think that way it would be great fun for those players who like dungeons to be an adventure, and don’t mind spending some time in there. I’d reward it differently than roulettes, it’d be bad if it ‘had’ to be done. In that sense it’s probably too costly to develop because not everyone would be in it. But one can dream

[Steelbreaker25]

Whenever I see this request, I have to wonder what people mean by "harder".

Are we talking harder, longer boss fights akin to trial fights or alliance raid bosses, with a lot of precision mechanics and instant death mechanics? The problem this runs into is the game is largely built around the 8-man party, with at least 2 party members with raises. Even competent players can die due to mistakes or lag or DCing or whatever, leaving a party of 4 SOL if the healer dies and there's no RDM or SMN. I've had otherwise pretty routine dungeon bosses wipe simply due to the healer dying due to a mistake, and not all tanks can self-sustain themselves. Look at the one four-man extreme trial we have in Rathalos EX. They had to introduce specialty mechanics to compensate for no raises. The alternative would be to give more classes raises, but seeing as SMN came very close to losing their raise in 6.0, that seems like an unlikely direction they'll go.

Mob packs are tricky, because we don't really have hard mob pulls in this game. The best example I can think of is the long pull after the second boss in Anamnesis Anyder, but that's not really difficult, it just takes a marginally competent tank/healer duo to manage. Without adding a bunch of randomized nonsense, they can only increase difficulty of trash by adding more mobs or by making them hit harder, but that just boils down to more of the same things we already have. I can't really say I get a great deal of joy out of trash pulls, personally.

The only ways I could think of that wouldn't be completely annoying or tedious is either to make 8-man dungeons, which wouldn't really replace the current system at all and would be it's own duty type, or to add a logos/lost action system, but I feel like before too long those will be solved systems, essentially removing the difficulty with cheese strats, because that always happens.

[Artemiz]

I like the idea of more 8 man dungeons, leveling and tome farming dungeons. It would help DPS queues a bit as you could have 5 or even 6 DPS per tank and healer if tuned right. Have more adds on boss fights and stricter DPS checks to keep the DPS jobs busy. Can have more interesting mechanics with more players as well.

[kaynide]

I’m not against optional side content dungeons, but I also think SE has the numbers and understands the development time versus average player time engaging the content. I believe they are trying to make side content that a) has more lasting use than a single dungeon and b) can be as future proof as possible and c) is not tied to leveling specifically (once people level the jobs they like, a lot just stop doing certain content).

Just me personally, I found for xp/hour the 50/60/70 roulette was the worst performer, as a result I rarely ran those dungeons. I would not be surprised if others think similarly and that the devs saw a need to make something that offers something other than xp but also a time sink a la Eureka or Bozja or even Blue Mage.

[kiagenwa]

lol yesterday we wiped in Continuum 3 times because we had no idea to let some creature loose so the boss get distracted from his wipe skill

The tank, I think, initiated abandon. We rejected.
It was fun.

Kudos to the initiator for respecting our votes.

Onto the topic, I'd support the idea. Our daily chore is a 'roulette'.
You can have one or two challenging dungeons per expansion and the rest just go and kill.

In the end the odds would even out.
I play this game for fun, not to fight the urge to sleep during boring dungeon run then feel excited when I get to a cutscene.

Just me personally, I found for xp/hour the 50/60/70 roulette was the worst performer, as a result I rarely ran those dungeons. I would not be surprised if others think similarly and that the devs saw a need to make something that offers something other than xp but also a time sink a la Eureka or Bozja or even Blue Mage.

Maybe. But for people under 90 days exp buff we'll need all the EXP we can gather and get to 70/80 in ARR.

[kaynide]

Maybe. But for people under 90 days exp buff we'll need all the EXP we can gather and get to 70/80 in ARR.

You would almost be better served just running the highest dungeon possible at your levels, -or- spamming PvP than doing the 50/60/70 roulette. Especially with the potential for massive timesink when you get a genuinely bad player. The core dungeons are much more forgiving for lazy/lackluster play/new player lack of experience (As you experienced yourself in your post above). Not a knock at you, just straight talk about wise use of time to get max xp/hour.'

...

I also love it when dungeons have interesting mechanics beyond tanking packs. Doesn't have to be anything crazy, but having a fight that needs to maneuver while also handling mobs is great. Even if it's small stuff like that Tonberry chasing you down, or the Indiana Jones boulders in Bardam.

Shisui of hte Violet Tides was a good one for me, with the bomb-fish, ambush fish under sand or the arrow barrage as you approach the second boss. Nothing hard, but it felt good.