Dungeon design is just so boring and formulaic [Spoilers]

[ddwarbird]

[[Spoilers ahead]]

I'll start off by saying that the expansion is great, compelling story, annoying characters and the whole cheesy "power of friendship" at the end of the expansion was cheesy. It would have been better if all the scions had been killed off at the end.

However, the dungeons this expansion have been so boring. Its just 2 trash waves then boss, every time. Some of the bosses do have interesting mechanics and the Endwalker dungeons do feel harder but doable if you know what you are doing but...

There is no exploration in these dungeons, they don't feel epic and remind me of Final Fantasy XIII a little too much, an endless hallway with very little variation. Visually some of them are stunning and its a shame they are so formulaic.

I think one of the ways to remedy this is to make dungeons different lengths, have 4 or 5 bosses or have them with optional bosses. This game does easily beat out WoW but the reason WoW did so well was the compelling dungeon design, with different numbers of bosses and call optional bosses. (Some of my favorite dungeons were Deadmines, Mauroden etc) because they may have been longer and sub-optimal but it didn't feel like game designers created it, it felt lived in, like REAL hideouts and caves.

I think the Japanese trope of "optimal" gameplay (something that is common to a lot of asian MMO's) is actually crippling the creativity a bit. Sure, some dungeons don't work in wow (I.E. Halls of Reflection) but it was still an interesting concept that expanded on the lore in new ways and tested out new mechanics.

I love this game, it beats WoW on everything, just not dungeon design.

[van_arn]

Players sucking the fun out of a game due to only doing what is “optimal” is hardly an Eastern genre philosophy. It’s simply human nature.

If anything, we’d be better serviced by an Extreme dungeon once in a while (for example, in the 83 dungeon) than more convoluted dungeons during the msq.

[Lily_Skye]

we need mythic plus dungeons

[Illmaeran]

Unfortunately the greater player base prefers optimized dungeons and since they're a lot easier to design, the dev team have doubled down on it. Gone are the days of even a pittance of exploration in dungeons, you may as well put your head down, shield up, and charge ahead.

[ddwarbird]

A lot of Chinese, Japanese and Korean games do this because they generally take gaming a lot more seriously (Korea is usually first in most Esports competitions). I think that this approach to dungeon design, although optimal, sucks up a lot of creativity that the developers could be doing to make dungeons more interesting then just one big hallway. This is the same company that made FFXIII or the "hallway simulator". XD

I would just like a little variation with dungeons because they all blend into each other and become rather forgettable.

[zcrash970]

Devs are afraid to experiment so yeah

[Rayeda]

we need mythic plus dungeons

This, so much.

[Makeda]

[[Spoilers ahead]]I think the Japanese trope of "optimal" gameplay (something that is common to a lot of asian MMO's) is actually crippling the creativity a bit. Sure, some dungeons don't work in wow (I.E. Halls of Reflection) but it was still an interesting concept that expanded on the lore in new ways and tested out new mechanics.

I didn't realize WoW was a Japanese MMO...

The only difference between this game and WoW in terms of dungeon design is we have better music, funner boss fights, and don't get our account punished if somebody else messes up so we don't hate everyone we run them with...

But it's always interesting how for some people, the first thing to fall back on when they don't like something is to blame the race or nationality of some 'other' set of people...

we need mythic plus dungeons

Hard pass. This is one of the major reasons WoW is so toxic.

That noted, something similar would be nice. I would look for Guild Wars 2 Fractals for inspiration instead. The main difference is they don't punish people for failure - so folks play them more cooperatively. Fractals came before M+, but the basic concept is similar: Dungeons you can "farm run" at increasingly greater difficulty.

Where fractals differ is:
1. Not hooked to a timer.
2. No 'key loss' on failure.
3. The thing that lets you run harder and harder ones only drops in them, and is only useful for them - so there's no need to run them to be ready for other content, or run other content to be ready for them.
4. They're tied to a set of dailies that change daily that help guild groups in choices - but this is a loose guide of small enough rewards that people are very willing to 'go off the rails' and run different ones.

[Areic]

We may not need mythic dungeons snapshotted from WoW, but we are in need of some dungeon focused content.

Dungeons right now are a brainless grind, to the point I actually bang my head against the desk if you get a single pull tank. All they become is a method to level or farm tomes, not something actually "fun" or challenging, even if a lot of them are aesthetically very cool.

I wouldn't mind 4 man dungeon savage, technically our hardest content is all on a timer anyway due to boss enrage mechanics, though we certainly don't need the system WoW has of "run out your timer, ruin your key, piss everyone off" Just give us more challenging dungeon bosses, mechanics to worry about, even trash that would make use of some horribly underused class skills like caster sleep or such.

[jadeblade]

we need mythic plus dungeons

HARD NO, DO SAVAGE. THATS YOUR MYTHIC PLUS.