Every dungeon should be a Variant Dungeon

[Koros]

no

variant dungeons are effing boing

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ctually-boring

i guess it's an upgrade from regular dungeons, but they're all trash

the branching paths are literally just different linear roads....??

the puzzle consists of pushing over a rock or a tree... wow so amazing that you really need to make the player do the same thing twice and push over each one once with no other change !!

this is what happens when player standards are so low lmao, they think variant dungeons are any good

[remiff]

no

variant dungeons are effing boing

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ctually-boring

i guess it's an upgrade from regular dungeons, but they're all trash

the branching paths are literally just different linear roads....??

the puzzle consists of pushing over a rock or a tree... wow so amazing that you really need to make the player do the same thing twice and push over each one once with no other change !!

this is what happens when player standards are so low lmao, they think variant dungeons are any good

the idea is good, but the overall design is too basic and bad,
with more elaborate ideas, and more resources it could be good, but it will never be the case.

[Rufalus]

I used to suggest different kinds of dungeon formats when I thought there was a chance they'd listen. Like one where you're chased by a boss from the very beginning. Remember that X-ATM092 spider robot from FF VIII that chases the party from Dollet communications tower. After taking enough damage it collapses and needs time to repair before the chase resumes. Between those encounters you can fight smaller enemies along the path, eventually reaching a dead end where you have no choice but to destroy the boss for good.

[Koros]

I used to suggest different kinds of dungeon formats when I thought there was a chance they'd listen. Like one where you're chased by a boss from the very beginning. Remember that X-ATM092 spider robot from FF VIII that chases the party from Dollet communications tower. After taking enough damage it collapses and needs time to repair before the chase resumes. Between those encounters you can fight smaller enemies along the path, eventually reaching a dead end where you have no choice but to destroy the boss for good.

That's a cool idea yeah. And actually far more cinematic than any dungeon in ff14

They seriously suck at telling story through gameplay lmao

[DiaDeem]

I will counter with one key difference between Variants and the scenarios you mentioned. Choices and variety in Variants cause progression, whereas the examples you quoted do not, are easily ignored, and can be bulldozed through. You would free the maidens in Sastasha if you had to in order to progress, in an alternative version of the dungeon the room is vacant and you need to trigger the fight in the side room by some clever way in order to move forward.

As such, by creating variables that cannot be ignored the experience stays fresher for much longer than static routes.

Yeah, don't get me wrong. Honestly would love more variance (no pun intended) to dungeons in general!

[Kozh]

I like the idea on paper about every dungeon being a variant dungeon but like a few have discussed novelty does wear off. Personally I think they should have it be auto-generated dungeons where when you go in no dungeon is the same as before similar to deep dungeons and maybe put chances for events like they do treasure maps but that might be too much coding for this wee little game. All in all - the same formula they use being 3 bosses with trash pulls in between is stale, players should not be able to predict every little thing everytime. A change needs to be made regardless.

If auto-generated dungeons are too much.... What if instead we were assigned random buff at the start of dungeon which make us deal X% more DPS in respective paths? So let's say there's A, B, C paths; and today when you run this dungeon, you get buff "B", which mean path B would be the fastest route. Then tomorrow if you run it again, you get buff "C", so ideally you will want to do path C.

I wonder how feasible that is for their coding.

[Eorzean_username]

Considering a run of a Variant is similar in lenght to a "Normal" dungeon, I really doubt this can be done. Variants sound like 3x the work than a regular dungeon. What you ask is impossible.

Here we go again with another variant (ha) of the argument, "Stop trying to hold the development team to any kind of standards or imagining improvements in how they direct their effort or workflow or budget or hiring practices, it's just NOT POSSIBLE".

I know I'm being abrasive and unhelpful right now, but honestly — "Three times more work than a regular dungeon" ?

So "Three times more work than a formulaic completely-linear hallway with a fixed pattern of 'Trash-Trash-Boss/Trash-Trash-Boss/Trash-Trash-Boss/END' " ?

"Three times" that??

That's the cutoff for something being too much work for XIV's development team??

That is objectively(?) depressing, and I think shows how well players here have been conditioned into expecting nothing, and being pleasantly-surprised if they get anything at all.

[Silver-Strider]

What's the difference between 1 dungeon with multiple different routes/bosses and just having multiple different dungeons?

[MintnHoney]

What's the difference between 1 dungeon with multiple different routes/bosses and just having multiple different dungeons?

Same set pieces, same characters, different encounters, possibly varying level design, maybe different aesthetics, and potentially different results. Unfortunately, FFXIV isn't really built for something like a storyline with branching paths, so any different results would have to be incredibly minor (and when things are that minor in FFXIV, they're basically ditched and never acknowledged again if they can help it).
I suppose they could just drop the pretense and go full Visual Novel on us, and let people actually have a "choose your own adventure" style mini-campaign or something, but that'd probably cut into the grass development.

[DixieBellOCE]

I do like the idea of all dungeons being variants but with one small change.

Each path has a difficulty setting.

If people want to run harder dungeon content, they can go down the hard paths, and of course, get better rewards for their time.

Path 1: Easy (current dungeon level of gameplay)
Path 2: medium (Variant Dungeon level of gameplay)
Path 3: Hard: (Slightly more boss mechanics)
Path 4: Extreme (Much harder bosses)
Path 5: Savage (Extremely hard dungeons, only people in the best gear and experienced players will be able to clear it)

Look at that, content catered to everyone!