Where is all the content?

[MilkieTea]

We've gotten like... the same amount of content it seems that HW, SB and ShB received when their expac launched. 6 MSQ dungeons, 2 optional dungeons for expert mode, 3 NM trials, 2 extremes on release day, as well as dozens of side quests. Granted, I did only join a bit over a year ago so I obviously don't know what it was like exactly on patch day and beyond, but. It feels roughly the same as ShB, SB, and HW content-wise for the very first patch. Seems like they save huge content releases for the .1, .2, .3, .4, .5 patches.

[Commander_Justitia]

We've gotten like... the same amount of content it seems that HW, SB and ShB received when their expac launched. 6 MSQ dungeons, 2 optional dungeons for expert mode, 3 NM trials, 2 extremes on release day, as well as dozens of side quests. Granted, I did only join a bit over a year ago so I obviously don't know what it was like exactly on patch day and beyond, but. It feels roughly the same as ShB, SB, and HW content-wise for the very first patch. Seems like they save huge content releases for the .1, .2, .3, .4, .5 patches.

ARR - 17 dungeons after mainstory
HW - 12 dungeons after mainstory
SB - 9 dungeons after mainstory (1 outsourced to Garo team) + 2 ultimates
ShB - 7 dungeons after mainstory (24 raid outsourced to Nier team & no potd like dungeon) + 1 ultimate (initially 2 promised)

The quality of dungeons might be better and take more time nowadays, but if you look at numbers, like you wanted to show?! then you can see the trend. Obviously it has reasons, ARR was much longer for example. People asked for challenging 4man content since HW, they still make dungeons the same way as ever though, you can only pull wall to wall that many times before it gets boring.

[ReynTime]

ARR - 17 dungeons after mainstory
HW - 12 dungeons after mainstory
SB - 9 dungeons after mainstory (1 outsourced to Garo team) + 2 ultimates
ShB - 7 dungeons after mainstory (24 raid outsourced to Nier team & no potd like dungeon) + 1 ultimate (initially 2 promised)

The quality of dungeons might be better and take more time nowadays, but if you look at numbers, like you wanted to show?! then you can see the trend. Obviously it has reasons, ARR was much longer for example. People asked for challenging 4man content since HW, they still make dungeons the same way as ever though, you can only pull wall to wall that many times before it gets boring.

What exactly makes the quality better? Flashy setpieces? The only thing interesting in 90% of the dungeons now are bosses. The experience of playing through almost all of them since Shadowbringers is exactly the same with only distinction being aesthetic.
ARR didn't beat EW's just in numbers... What it lacked in setpiece and music it had in making even lineart dungeons actually have distinct experiences.

[Kaurhz]

What exactly makes the quality better? Flashy setpieces? The only thing interesting in 90% of the dungeons now are bosses. The experience of playing through almost all of them since Shadowbringers is exactly the same with only distinction being aesthetic.
ARR didn't beat EW's just in numbers... What it lacked in setpiece and music it had in making even lineart dungeons actually have distinct experiences.

What we have now is exactly as a result of how the player mentality developed through the course of the game. Outside of the initial 1-off experience most players were only ever concerned with what the end-goal is and how fast they can get there, art, style and presentation be damned. You had optional routes and more complexity with the ARR dungeons, some of them even having their own unique loot used for housing items, yet all of this was forsaken because the only player concern was being in-and-out as fast as possible. So really it's no surprise that dungeons have devolved into corridor simulators, to be honest.

Personally, I'd love some of the complexity and flare that the ARR dungeons has, but let's not kid ourselves that the majority of people would only be concerned in doing the dungeon as fast as possible.

[Xavier_Firbold]

What we have now is exactly as a result of how the player mentality developed through the course of the game. Outside of the initial 1-off experience most players were only ever concerned with what the end-goal is and how fast they can get there, art, style and presentation be damned. You had optional routes and more complexity with the ARR dungeons, some of them even having their own unique loot used for housing items, yet all of this was forsaken because the only player concern was being in-and-out as fast as possible. So really it's no surprise that dungeons have devolved into corridor simulators, to be honest.

Personally, I'd love some of the complexity and flare that the ARR dungeons has, but let's not kid ourselves that the majority of people would only be concerned in doing the dungeon as fast as possible.

Do you actually have a metric for this though? I can search through the forums and see the majority of people want more complexity and interesting dungeons/experiences. I mean the last 3 dungeons we had in the SHB arc were awesome for their involvement and keeping you actually busy.

I've noticed you like to blame the players a lot in this thread. Are you sure it's entirely down to the players? Or is it more of a easy excuse to use instead of pointing the finger at the people actually making the game?

[Komarimono]

Do you actually have a metric for this though? I can search through the forums and see the majority of people want more complexity and interesting dungeons/experiences. I mean the last 3 dungeons we had in the SHB arc were awesome for their involvement and keeping you actually busy.

I've noticed you like to blame the players a lot in this thread. Are you sure it's entirely down to the players? Or is it more of a easy excuse to use instead of pointing the finger at the people actually making the game?

And yet you get threads where people say the new dungeons are too hard, like Deads End. Literally just had a healer quit from that since they died on first boss, not paying attention as well.

[Xavier_Firbold]

Complexity doesn't have to equal difficulty in the encounter. I'm sorry you've found a bad healer but that's not what I mean when I say complexity.

What about a randomly generated puzzle you have to solve in some dungeons? However that may look, it would keep people engaged.

Or perhaps a free roaming dungeon in which you have to kill certain monsters to get through to the end/boss.

Or even better, why not make it feel like the End of Days actually happened across Etheryis? IT happens in two zones in the entirety of the story, and we "fix" the problem by telling people to stop thinking nihilistically.

[Kaurhz]

Do you actually have a metric for this though? I can search through the forums and see the majority of people want more complexity and interesting dungeons/experiences. I mean the last 3 dungeons we had in the SHB arc were awesome for their involvement and keeping you actually busy.

I've noticed you like to blame the players a lot in this thread. Are you sure it's entirely down to the players? Or is it more of a easy excuse to use instead of pointing the finger at the people actually making the game?

The forums are not really the most indicative metric for the majority of players, really. Besides, I can only look upon the equally numbered people that have complained about dungeons such as Aurum Vale, Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, Amaurot, or Dead-Ends on this forum (It's just a matter of agenda at this point), about how environmental aspects such as ground poison and slowness from slime, in addition to the myriad of webs in the latter dungeon turns out to be a dull inconvenience. Or the numerous optional areas and spaces in dungeons granted that additional layer of exploration - Again many of these forsaken just to complete a dungeon a couple of minutes faster. Take a look at Haukke Manor previously. Once a dungeon that offered you potentially 100K Gil in items for merely killing a couple of mobs and opening a door with a key and grabbing a chest. Why would it be that mundane and basic things such as these were skipped by the players despite exploration such as this, or more extensive be 'prolific and requested' within the game. - Not once did I see a player go for the Manor Varnish, Fine Wax, or Amdapori Stone, or the puzzle included in the final section of Qarn, despite it granting 3 more chests of loot.

It isn't entirely down to the players, no, but the players are a large basis for their development or trends, be it with simplified crafting or dungeons. It's just as easy an excuse as it is to point at the devs and scream lazy as to what it is to sit and point at the players and go "You asked for it" - In fact my argument is that it is just as much on the players as it is on the developers in this particular case of dungeon design. Further, given the forum it'd actually just be easier for me to agree with whatever the set agenda or argument is, which in many cases is just screaming.

[Commander_Justitia]

What exactly makes the quality better? Flashy setpieces? The only thing interesting in 90% of the dungeons now are bosses. The experience of playing through almost all of them since Shadowbringers is exactly the same with only distinction being aesthetic.

I don't disagree with you much, aesthethics/graphics/animations/models look imo better and more polished in more recent dungeons overall. But gameplay wise I feel like they are entering a dead-end, they were more open to changes in the past. Why even give classes a sleep crossskill if all mobs in new dungeons are immune to most cc effects

[CKNovel]

Dungeons in ARR were boring and visually lackluster. HW were a bit better but a lot of them are forgettable or a ton of reused assets.
SB was much better but some dungeons had hiccup. ShB dungeons, I really need to be picky to say a dungeon is both mechanically and visually boring.
Where dungeons used to be a cave, a fortress, a manor... We now have a dungeon separated in 3 micro dungeons with differents themes.
Would I like a surprise 82/84/86/88/90 dungeon during the MSQ? Sure, but I'm satisfied with the dungeon quality so far.

Dungeons are corridors?
Guess what Sastashan Tam-Tara are after the first time you finish it.
You will always use the same path. If you want to explore, it will be a waste of time for the players that already explored.
Labyrinth are better for solo duties. Like "In the cold", I liked it but some players have complaint about it.

Gear?
We already have a lot ingame and the quality of the new one is really nice.
83 dungeon has cool winter coats. Heck, there is a chainsaw gunblade! (But it's not rotating...)

What actually grinds my mind about the "side content" are the following:
-No new tank mount or new healer mount.
-No meaningful reward after leveling all jobs to 90.
-Lacking role quests, nothing if you complete them all (as of 6.05, apparently they said they would add something)
-Job design is worse than Shadowbringers, popular player feedback was ignored (Living Dead, anyone?)
-Balancing is in the strawberries, even worse than the start of ShB.
-5.5 was lackluster, no ultimate and a visually empty Zadnor. We got 9 months of waiting but same content.

I'm not against less dungeons, mounts...
But dammit SQEX, polish what you build, polish what exists.