My problem with FF 14

[KurenXIV]

It has a lot of benefits, including for chain productivity. The consistency of 3 bosses mixed with 2 sets of 2 packs of trash before them makes it consistent and smooth and easy for them to plan ahead. It makes it consistent for players, who know what to expect and know how long a dungeon will take. It reduces anxiety of "how much should I pull" that ARR dungeons still create.

To play devils advocate, why even bother having trash mobs then?

Part of the problem with streamlining everything and removing every little hard edge that someone could hurt themselves on is that you get a super boring end product.

If there's no threat to dying to trash and we know it'll always be two pulls before the boss then truly, what is the point?

Additionally, given that all dungeons are largely the same format now (ie: hallway with 2 pulls, boss fight, hallway with 2 pulls boss....) we should at the very least get more dungeons.

I pointed this out in another thread but we got more in a shorter period of time in earlier expansions when the game had less resources/income vs now. The influx of players, which should result in more revenue and should result in more content for the game has simply not happened.

It's one of my biggest frustration points as a long term player.

Why does the field exploration content take so long to implement (when its the only grindy aspect left for current content outside of tomes/savage drops), why do we only get one dungeon per patch (is it even one per patch now? is it every other? I forget...), why isn't there more smaller scale events put into the game so these long droughts for the main content doesn't feel so long? Why are holidays so quick and boring now when they used to have more substance?

Honestly this all comes back to them being lazy and getting comfortable with the status quo for how they do things.

They really felt like they gave a damn back when they were trying to revive the game from its death in 1.0 but now it seems they are just happy to let things continue as is, player satisfaction be damned.

Oh and lastly .. . they put a TON of effort and resources into dumbing down all the old content to make it soloable with NPCs; why not have that be the way for people scared of tanking/healing content to clear it without having to have anxiety and make full party player dungeons (and other content) more challenging?

Not saying I have all the answers but yeah the games boring and stale and the DT story didn't do that fact any favors.

[Jeeqbit]

To play devils advocate, why even bother having trash mobs then?

The trash does sometimes have interesting mechanics, SE just goes back and forth on it. For example, in Shadowbringers they added a lot of interruptable casts that, if interrupted, made it easier for the healers. This can also be the case occasionally in ARR, HW and Stormblood. For example, the mobs in Sirensong Sea, the bees in Neverreap, the petrify mobs in Haukke Manor, various Morbols, swings from Cyclops and the many casts of Chimeras. There are also a lot of proper interactions with the trash there such as placing them on stones in Qarn, dragging mobs to chains in Halitali HM or the vents in Sohm Al HM or ignoring treasure coffers that might be mimicks etc.

Part of the problem with streamlining everything and removing every little hard edge that someone could hurt themselves on is that you get a super boring end product.

I agree and SE acknowledged this mistake shortly before Dawntrail so their intention is to change that through Dawntrail. Whether that is or becomes a success I'll leave for you to judge.

If there's no threat to dying to trash and we know it'll always be two pulls

I disagree that there's "no threat". Definitely still seen people wipe to trash. Of course, it's usually fine with good players, but if you actually just queue with random players instead of 3 veteran friends, you can find yourself having a whole lot more fun precisely because of the varying skill and experience levels.

we should at the very least get more dungeons.

Well the reason we had more dungeons made before was because we didn't have many compared to WoW. We have somewhere close to (or abouts) 100 now, so SE decided we have plenty now and to focus development on other things. I don't mind the development shift, but I would like Expert roulette to have more variety - so I would like Expert and Level 100 roulette to just be merged so we aren't getting 2 dungeons for most of the expansion.

It's worth pointing out that they did start making more dungeons, called Variant and Criterion. They may not be exactly what you're wanting and maybe they need feedback to steer them in the direction you want, but they are still a form of dungeon.

I pointed this out in another thread but we got more in a shorter period of time in earlier expansions when the game had less resources/income vs now. The influx of players, which should result in more revenue and should result in more content for the game has simply not happened.

I feel like I disagree with this. Just because the content isn't what you're into doesn't mean it's less content. We didn't used to get Variant, Criterion, Ultimate, Chaos Raids, Cosmic Exploration and Shades' Triangle in ARR! We didn't actually even get the normal modes of the 8-person raids in ARR since they were just the high-end content as they were.

Why does the field exploration content take so long to implement (when its the only grindy aspect left for current content outside of tomes/savage drops)

It just does? And there's plenty of stuff to grind such as Extremes for the mount, FATEs, hunts, leveling all jobs, TT cards etc. if you're into grinds.

Honestly this all comes back to them being lazy and getting comfortable with the status quo

I don't agree with the lazy part. But comfortable with the status quo is absolutely their intention. It makes it consistent for both them and players. Wouldn't be fun if some patches were 1 month apart and others were 11 months apart at complete random like I heard WoW used to be before they bought out a company with 100 spare developers. Knowing what I'm getting months in advance makes it easy to just get a 6 month subscription.

Oh and lastly .. . they put a TON of effort and resources into dumbing down all the old content to make it soloable with NPCs; why not have that be the way for people scared of tanking/healing content to clear it without having to have anxiety and make full party player dungeons (and other content) more challenging?

I do agree that it presents an opportunity to make the version done by players more challenging. To a degree, it's more likely that they will do single pulls with Duty Support though, so it's already less challenging, but they could make other changes with players or allow players to vote on making it harder in exchange for more rewards.