Dungeons we need to talk dungeons

[Shurrikhan]

Compared to Yoshi-P who isn't beholden to some higher up publisher, and was even promoted to the lead of creative business unit III, showing that his fellow leads on the board have much respect for him.

Yoshida absolutely is beholden to a higher up publisher. It's not as an invasive a publisher as Activision, but he's not suddenly freed from commitments. We have seen this many times already, such in trends to focus design around sale points (see the many abilities that had no reason to be abilities outside of the fact that actions demo and sell better than traits) and iconizing grinds like those of our relics.

Rather than wasting time asking Yoshi-P for harder 4 man dungeons which have been so rock solidly integrated into the design of this game as the easy, spammable daily task, people should be asking him for more unique 4 man content like PoTD. I think asking for more unique 4 man content will go much further in their feedback than asking for harder dungeons, which I can pretty much guarantee any feedback of such is likely just thrown out the window immediately.

And it's funny that you're passing something as broad as asking for more than a barebone, grinded experience in a content genre as staple as dungeons as somehow "waste[ful]" or, unless your grouping here was coincidental, negatively profits-minded.

Most of those asking for interesting dungeons are the same people who asked for unique and polished 4-man content previously. What did they get instead? The barebone grindfest that is PotD and HoH... and even further dumbed down dungeon grinds. And here's the thing: giving the option for dungeons to hold difficulty sufficient for their mechanics to act as actual mechanics, rather than ignorable suggestions, not only allows for more engaging experiences but reduces the development costs otherwise wasted in building those dungeons. It takes virtually zero time to simply slap a HP and damage modifier onto a dungeon. And for that you get greatly increased engagement. Virtually no cost. Large, centralized gains, especially for those who have already enjoyed your game, but wish there was something more that wasn't shuffling them off to the side again.

But, alas, what's the one thing a mob stat scaler doesn't do, despite its efficiency? It doesn't sound sexy. It doesn't sell. Because gods forbid it's something that makes sense to those who actually play the given content and enjoy its genre and possibilities, rather than merely attracts people to it (historically, to then quickly become nonsensical, like our dungeons' present scaling).

...Which is why we instead build altogether new content genres from scratch, badly fail to flesh them out, and treat the playerbase as unappeasable if they're not thereby satisfied, I suppose...

I can pretty much guarantee any feedback of such is likely just thrown out the window immediately.

And yet metrics will save us all, even as any reason for a drop in related playtime, or even subs, can be spun any which way since specific feedback is irrelevant?