please bring back hard mode/optional dungeons

[Post]

Yo, the dungeon revisits almost invariably owned. I think the only ones that were steps down were Pharos and Arboretum.

I don't even mind the reused areas because they're normally differentiated enough visually, and I think they gave a good testing ground for battle designers.

After Euphrosyne and a bunch of the Pandemonium encounters I think they could use dungeons to give some of the newer designers practice... (Referencing a JP article where YoshiP states that the new 24 mans were entirely within the hands of a newer battle design and story writing team)

Maybe it would be less costly to produce 'hard mode' dungeons again because the environments wouldn't have to be wholly new like with the separate Variant dungeons.

[Jojoya]

Maybe it would be less costly to produce 'hard mode' dungeons again because the environments wouldn't have to be wholly new like with the separate Variant dungeons.

It's definitely less costly and less time consuming to reuse an existing dungeon than to make a new one from scratch. That's why it's strange they stopped doing them unless most of the feedback they were receiving was negative because of the reuse.

Personally, I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other. If reusing existing assets means more overall content, that seems like a good thing as long as we're still getting some completely new content along with it (which can then also be reused at a later date).

[ElysiumDragon]

I suspect Variant/Criterion dungeons are the evolution of these optional dungeons, so I wouldn't expect to see them return.

[vetch]

I suspect Variant/Criterion dungeons are the evolution of these optional dungeons, so I wouldn't expect to see them return.

Neither Variant which is soloable by design nor Criterion that's hard enough to make some Savage floors blush is a solution to the gaping chasm left in the middle difficulty range by the discontinuation of group-required optional dungeons. And neither contributes to making Expert Roulettes exciting again.

[Post]

I think expert dungeons have obviously long held that dubious daily roulette title because, especially early on in the game's life, there weren't many easy ways to cap weekly tomes.

After a decade, though, we have tons of ways, not even just looking at all the additional roulettes that now exist. I was hoping that because of this that they'd feel more free to make high end dungeons more challenging, or at least equivalent to your leveling dungeons in terms of difficulty.

It feels bizarre still that trash in Bardum's and Holminister hit significantly harder than max level trash.

[kingskye]

I think expert dungeons have obviously long held that dubious daily roulette title because, especially early on in the game's life, there weren't many easy ways to cap weekly tomes.

After a decade, though, we have tons of ways, not even just looking at all the additional roulettes that now exist. I was hoping that because of this that they'd feel more free to make high end dungeons more challenging, or at least equivalent to your leveling dungeons in terms of difficulty.

It feels bizarre still that trash in Bardum's and Holminister hit significantly harder than max level trash.

you say that but in many ways we always had the optional tools to cap our tomes weekly, just needed a community behind the hunting community which didnt start until late stormblood because back then every server had a warlord behind the hunts...now as much as i dont want to get rid of content like criterion...BUT since savage requires u to be max gear to clear it, i would say get rid of savage and throw your eggs into criterion and still give us the lore expanding dungeons

[Mayhemmer]

Optional dungeons in Dawntrail would be a nice additional avenue to flesh out the lore of the new part of the world we're exploring, which is a detail I do miss from their inclusions in the past.

[Kuroka]

I want my 2nd dungeon back...