Every dungeon should be a Variant Dungeon

[GoatOfWar]

Slow baby pull trashpacks and an npc loitering about for half the duration of the dungeon? You can miss me with that.

[Gullis]

Slow baby pull trashpacks and an npc loitering about for half the duration of the dungeon? You can miss me with that.

Honestly this. All the paths play the same anyway

[Kaurhz]

Yes, if they can make the trash packs go quicker and have more monsters.

I like the design of Variant, but there are some things with Variant that IMO wouldn't really make it compatible in the long haul with standard dungeons when they're ran on roulette.

[waswillbe]

Do you use the match making for variant at all? I don't- I either go with my friends in a pre-made, discussing before hand what we want, or I just go solo. I know how people get in random match ups. Heck, I know how I get with random match ups. If every dungeon becomes a variant, then how will roulettes look?

I think it'll be tough going into a roulette and getting one of these. "Well, I pulled the rope last time I was here, I want to do funny emotes at this thing instead." The reason msq roulette is how it is is because of those unskippable cut scenes that were made unskippable so new players don't feel rushed. And people still dip out if they get don't castrum (too long otherwise) or if they don't get Prae (not enough rewards otherwise). So we make variants their own roulette and get... nothing in leveling?

A bunch of players at various different points of completion and it becomes an argument about which path to take, or being spoiled for not going through a "natural" progression. and then everyone is dipping out of your roulette.

Otherwise you would need to do it to completion on your own before ever entering the roulette, at which case the dungeon is already stale

[Marooned_Pilot]

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.

Sounds interesting and actually feasible for them. All they would have to do is implement he same code they use on Frontline with the rotating and they already have the code to implement debuffs at the start of dungeons as seen in deep dungeons when you move up floors.

[Ath192]

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.

Slow baby pull trashpacks and an npc loitering about for half the duration of the dungeon? You can miss me with that.

Yeah, for sure, like I wouldn't suggest an NPC taking forever to move things forward or for the mob groups to be too small or easy, but the idea would be that even though defeating the dungeon always has the same result for the MSQ, the dungeons do vary from run to run.

For example, Stone Vigil, you always kill the dragon at the end however, different things and possibly bosses happen in the castle before you get to the dragon to keep things a bit more entertaining.

[FairyDJ]

Toto-Rak had other issues beside the fact the dungeon had many different routes. I would probably do route things if it was required a bit more but then there is the replayable piece of this too. Like I don't think every dungeon should be variant but I do like the idea of it.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Honestly this. All the paths play the same anyway

obviously we're not asking to keep the same structure between variant and regular dungeons. We dont need to have to wait for an NPC to let us proceed, but the core concept of having a dungeon with multiple paths, objectives and bosses to tackle is basically what classic WoW sorta did that this game DESPERATELY needs for its dungeon content. Im tired of the streamlined pretty long narrow hallways. I want some bit of agency to the paths, bosses and loot we can get in each path for our dungeons.

Make dungeons, actual dungeons!

[TaleraRistain]

I think so, but you need to read the whole post in order to understand how the issue you brought up would be handled.

Unfortunately people would just bail if it isn't the route they want. People still bail on Castrum even after the changes.

[Ath192]

Unfortunately people would just bail if it isn't the route they want. People still bail on Castrum even after the changes.

I disagree on this heavily. Castrums problem is that the rewards are incorrectly imbalanced vs Prae. So it has nothing to do with its variability. If all paths are tuned to within a few minutes of completion time with the same reward this would not happen. So I don't think the scenario is comparative at all.

Its actually interesting we clearly see people dip on Castrum to get the longer Prae for a better reward. So they choose the most tedious path because its worth it. Finally, even when I do get Castrum and see people dip out, I have never seen a Castrum run completely dissolve and it always refills and the duty gets complete.