Dungeons so far are much better in Dawntrail, thank you.

[Mapleine]

I was a little down on parts of the MSQ and things like healer, but I would like to praise just how much better the basic dungeons are. These are easily the best to date and are actually fun and interesting to run and re-run. Mechanics are both better and occur at a much more reasonable pace.

I really don't have much else to add, but I do hope the trash mobs in dungeons can get a little bit of a pick-me-up too.

[Sekundessounet]

Yeah I agree !

As for trash mobs, it's true that they could do more interesting stuff still. I like the idea of having like a giant mob that acts like a mini-boss, but if so, make it have mechanics to do rather than like, one big AoE (looking at you Origenics big turtle)

[Eyrilona]

Indeed not only the dungeons but most battle content this expansion has been a welcome step up from what we had in Endwalker. This aspect of the content, along with the quality of many blue and yellow quests, are really carrying the expansion for me this time.

[Arrius]

Though I wonder what they had in mind with Origenics (Level 99 dungeon).

The pacing is all over the place with that one and not really enjoyable.

[Shurrikhan]

I... haven't really noticed any significant differences, outside of robo-tortoise and other solo mobs (which were decently cool, I guess) and some forced one-pack pulls (which were not)?

I'm honestly struggling to think of a single mechanic that wasn't a rehash of ones from prior boss fights (be they from dungeons, trials, or raids).

I do think the lv93 dungeon was gorgeous, though, and occasionally the trash abilities required at least a tiny bit more response or preemption than usual.

Would also second the desire for more interesting trash, and would add on some desire for a slight rework to the diminishing returns systems and a return of Silence and Pacify (as compared to solely Interrupt, Stun, and Sleep), even if still with only at most 2 buttons across such action-CC (as opposed to solely mobility-CC).

[Sated]

I do hope the trash mobs in dungeons can get a little bit of a pick-me-up too.

Melee and tanks already neglect stunning trash's pointblanks, and I'm not sure how much of it is just poor/lazy play or how much of it is just being conditioned to expect it to already be immune due to Holy spam.

If they make trash harder I hope they address WHM's AoE situation so that it doesn't screw over the party's CC options.

[ThorneDynasty]

Melee and tanks already neglect stunning trash's pointblanks

True, but I think the root problem is they stopped expecting better from the players. Like yeah, of course people are neglecting to stun those ARR dungeon mobs that summon more mobs, for example, when you have another 8 years of game where you do literally the same thing every dungeon.

Instead of trusting their players to learn, they dumbed down the game. And I bet if they had instead chosen to double down and added even more mob mechanics, we'd have better players. Instead they are so deathly afraid of player friction, such as "hey dude, stun those mobs that transform/summon/whatever", they made every single dungeon the exact same.

Honestly, it's more like they want the game to play like a single player game where there's zero communication that goes beyond shallow positivity. You see this in job design, where we constantly hear "no single point of failure" to excuse abysmal design, especially with healers. Which is kind of hilarious lack of self-awareness considering how they design body check mechanics.

[Striker44]

Instead of trusting their players to learn, they dumbed down the game. And I bet if they had instead chosen to double down and added even more mob mechanics, we'd have better players. Instead they are so deathly afraid of player friction, such as "hey dude, stun those mobs that transform/summon/whatever", they made every single dungeon the exact same.

Or, the game would be falling apart because it's failing to adapt to reality. Heck, we like to compare FFXIV to WoW, and outside of high-level keys in M+ dungeons, even WoW doesn't do anything like this anymore. I remember the early days of WoW when you could only pull single packs and would assign different people to CC different mobs before you even pulled that single pack, then focus-fired down certain ones first. Those days are just simply a thing of the past. The prime MMO demographic doesn't have the time to spend 2 hours in a dungeon anymore (thinking back to old-school Wailing Caverns). It's no longer teenagers, college kids, and young adults with tons of spare time on their hands; now, the prime demographic is adults with families and full-time careers.

I'll also pull out the infamous example of Wildstar. It released after WoW had already implemented LFG, no more need to CC mobs, wall-to-wall pulling, and so on. Wildstar was billed as the "old-school" MMO that was meant to be difficult and require time and thought to succeed. It also shut down completely after only 4 years because the playerbase just wasn't there.

Point being - if FFXIV chose to "double down and add even more mob mechanics," the most likely end result wouldn't be "better players," it would be "fundamentally changing the game and driving most of the players away."

Honestly, it's more like they want the game to play like a single player game where there's zero communication that goes beyond shallow positivity. You see this in job design, where we constantly hear "no single point of failure" to excuse abysmal design, especially with healers. Which is kind of hilarious lack of self-awareness considering how they design body check mechanics.

I feel like that's conflating two different things. The "body check" mechanics are in high-level end-game content. The concept that gets raised of "no single point of failure" focuses on regular content for typical players. The dev team doesn't want a random DF group to be unable to complete a dungeon solely because the Healer keeps standing in bad stuff and nobody else can either rez him or help the group keep going.

[CidHeiral]

I actually have to be awake during dungeons now. It's great. Well done, devs!