The XIV encounter recipe in a nutshell

[Nero-Voidstails]

Also:
- Raid wide AoE that you can't avoid.

But really to be fair I like the last boss of the Stayborough dungeon or trying to do the maze in Tender Valley (even though it's re-used). It's a start.

I agree with you and I like the other side dungeon in general the first boss is annoying but unique second boss is interesting the last one can one shot that I was surprised and the last pulls with the healer check is actually really interesting even the first boss in the dungeon you speak about.

its not to hard but I have seen many wipe on the first boss

[Jeeqbit]

Well first there is the slowly boiling frog analogy. Water gets hotted and hotter but slow enough that you keep up with it right? Until at some point you notice you're seriously having problems and that's what happened to me in EW

That makes sense if the issues started in ShB for you. I just remember as far back as Heavensward people saying to me "it's just in, out, reused mechs" arguments and so I thought "if it's been like that since HW, then what actually changed now?"

I suppose other things can keep people occupied in the game through that time though - such as the social aspects (RP, venues, BA/DRS, FC events, statics, hunt communities).

I think there are two especially notable things that made this issue more obvious in Endwalker:

• The giant hitboxes and re-centering thing forced them even more into the "in, out" thing and made it even more obvious, since you couldn't realistically drag the boss around for mechanics anymore. The solution to that was mostly to have mini versions of the boss do mechs instead or have arena-based mechanics. This is one of the things they are supposed to be backtracking on but I'll leave it to everyone to decide if they have - it's still a bit early in the expansion.
• Expert roulette only having the same 2 dungeons, one of which has always been in it for 8 months. If you do this daily for 8 months you get so used to the script that, no matter how difficult or complicated or fresh the mechanics, they become absolutely braindead to execute and then all you see seared in your mind is more of the in, out, left, right stuff. This is a consequence of no longer making sidequest dungeons and they'd really just benefit from merging Expert and Level 100 Roulette together to increase variety. For example, the last MSQ dungeon beat me up at first on Viper but after months of doing it, it's absolutely braindead. In the past, it was always 2 new dungeons in that roulette every 3.5 months.

It's not just about encounter lego and bricks, it goes way beyond this. It encompasses the battle system, the game direction and feel, and what as a player you're being asked to do in any fight encounter.

True, there have been a lot of other changes (aka removals) that take away things that potentially distracted from how it had in, out, stack, spread before, so maybe it's easier to notice due to everything else being streamlined.

You'll admit though, that encounters didn't use to be stack, pairs, spread, chariot, dynamo all the time either.

It didn't in ARR for sure, although a lot of ARR dungeons actually seem to predate ARR and were ported from 1.0, with certain changes. They were a lot of different things in HW too, like both the Hullbreaker Isles from ARR/HW respectively. Based on what they said, this is the design they want to return to (with hindsight of what doesn't work), and I can see they have at least tried in the new dungeons.

If they haven't returned to that design enough then we can hope that they try harder with it. I think Dawntrail is meant to be about getting the battle content to the right place again and they may not have meant they'd succeed right off the bat. So perhaps the best place for us to start is to give reviews of the new Dawntrail dungeons specifically and what is good and what isn't (Dawntrail raids and trials too, depending on ones' interests).

I have seen many wipe on the first boss

I've done it for months and not seen a single wipe, but I've seen it come very close. But y'know, nothing can kill a Warrior, so I'm bias.

[Valence]

Wait wait, where did they say they wanted to go back to ARR/HW encounters? Because if that's the idea, they've utterly failed so far...

[Jeeqbit]

Wait wait, where did they say they wanted to go back to ARR/HW encounters? Because if that's the idea, they've utterly failed so far...

Sorry if I can't immediately say where they explained this, there's been lots of events, interviews, media tours, live letters and fanfests the past year. I think it was at one of the Pax events.

They explained that, starting with Stormblood, they fell into a pattern of "safe" mechanics that they knew would be received well. This was because they were afraid of the criticism of the type of mechanics they had done in ARR and Heavensward.

So they didn't say this, but observing what stopped happening in Stormblood, it's obvious they mean anything that interfered with uptime, or was annoying (like the enemies running at you thing in Stayborough), or involved stuns and status effects and things like that. And it's exactly these things they tried to do in Stayborough.

They also began explaining mechanics and making them too obvious - let's use Doma Castle as an example of this, and wanted to go back to a point where you have to wipe and "figure out" the mechanics. It's fair to say that most people who do Stayborough or Tender Valley don't "get" the mechanics on the first pull and to be quite honest, I've met plenty of people that don't get them after doing it for weeks and just eat the vulns. Had a few discussions about it recently with randoms in Stayborough. This is similar to how you can do ARR and HW dungeons and not get the mechanics for lots of runs (for example, not dragging tethers to statues in Amdapor Keep HM/The Aery, the birds in Pharos Sirius, ignoring trees in Hullbreaker, because they didn't put a gigantic arrow on them).

I'm not saying they have got it to where you or others would like it to be, but that's what they explained they wanted to do and they specifically said the new expert dungeons had their new philosophy and I can see where they have tried.

Another thing they said they wanted to do was send individual roles, such as the DPS, to fight other enemies in raids - you know like how they do in A12 or A7, so this is something to look for as well.

[Absurdity]

The first boss in Strayborough, or rather being chased by a thing with wonky hitboxes that you shouldn't get hit by, isn't even really new, it's basically a variation of E8S Light Rampant orbs.

The spinning ghosts on the 2nd boss are a more interesting mechanic that can be built upon for higher difficulties imo, although I'm not entirely sure if that hasn't been done before either.

[Aravell]

So they didn't say this, but observing what stopped happening in Stormblood, it's obvious they mean anything that interfered with uptime, or was annoying (like the enemies running at you thing in Stayborough), or involved stuns and status effects and things like that. And it's exactly these things they tried to do in Stayborough.

I feel like fights being catered towards easy full uptime with nothing getting in the way of it just ends up making very stale fights for a melee, so it's good to hear that they're changing that if this is true.

I did notice a bit of it already in this tier though. Electrifying Witch Hunt baits may result in downtime. Elevate and Eviscerate in M1S also forces downtime (although some people got around it by finding out that if 1 person in the DPS/supports group is dead, it automatically targets the other group, so saccing 1 DPS allows the other 3 to always have full uptime during Mouser 1).