FF 14 has the worst dungeons

[Red-thunder]

I honestly just love how all the shit I said in 2021-2022 that got shit on is now accepted opinion.

[AvoSturmfaust]

People still dying and crying about alexandria, what do you expect? Yea the dungeons are boring, but with the community final has sadly we cant change anything about it, because increase difficulity? people cry, give them proper wipe mechanics? people cry, freaking crybabys

[Azurarok]

The funny thing is I thought trusts give you the opportunity to explore a dungeon at your own pacing, so if anything it could've given more room for more optional routes. Maybe even hide some dialogue with them in some corners you'd rarely ever go to in a roulette run.

[SongOfTheWind]

Before the arr dungeons rework I had a friend who joined the game from WoW and was genuinely impressed by the very first dungeons you unlock as new player with how unique and different they were. The irony of it. Needless to say - he is not playing anymore.

[Hallarem]

Dungeons are just MSQ cutscenes.

[Kandraxx]

It's not only dungeons, the whole game is a guardrailed theme park MMO through tunnels and hoses, where you press the buttons in the order the devs want you to press them.

[Mikey_R]

Even some old dungeons that had 3-4 packs of enemies on wall to wall pulls got changed to have extra walls to prevent pull more then 2 packs of enemies on each wall to wall pulls(Here is good example The Vault level 57 dungeon before it got changed, you did able to pull 4 packs of enemies before the first boss but after the change to the dungeon, now there is extra wall that only let us pull 2 packs of enemies).

I'm assuming you are talking about the door just past the second pack, that has always been there. Here is a Mrhappy video from Heavensward with the door in question.

It is also worth mentioning, even with dungeons without physical walls, you still stopped at certain points, mainly where you average group could handle. You could pull more, but that would most likely be a wipe, so you just didn't do it unless you knew the group was very very good, aka, not randoms (even then, it could still be too much).

As for the topic as a whole, optional paths were so optional, it got to a point noone would do them. The rewards were nothing special and even if there was something more unique, noone cared for it. The class specific rings in Brayflox just before the last boss comes to mind. Minion at the start of Amdapor Keep? Who goes after that chest, even when the content was relevant?

Players themselves are the ones that essentially made the dungeons corridors as all the optional routes were ignored anyway. We even found the fastest routes through original Toto Rak because noone wanted to go through all the side paths.

What is missing however are things like environmental hazards, the rocks falling at the start of Xelphatol, Airship fire at the end of The Keeper of the Lake etc. Or even things that help you in pulls, like the water at the end of Saint Mocianne's Arboretum to make enemies more vulnerable to attacks. This goes into fight design as well, giving more unique things to worry about that might fit the dungeon theme. It is these elements that are missing and should return.

[Mawlzy]

The design is like this so it could work for trusts. And soon, old trials will be changed so you can queue with trusts. The designs were bad even before trusts but trusts are the reason they'll never be creative again.

Then improve the trusts. I know SQEX likes to excuse a lack of features by claiming insurmountable coding problems, but there's no need for us to accept such gaslighting.

[Mawlzy]

You can also just interact with other people while playing solo in FC chat, linkshells, NN, etc.
Actually, if they make them all support trusts, then they can make more challenging/engaging versions for actual player parties. Not saying they will do it, but it is an opportunity to create a distinction between an easy and engaging version of a dungeon.

Something that is badly needed for players across the entire skill spectrum.

[sindriiisgaming]

I played quite a few mmos but FF 14 is king for having the most boring dungeons I ever played. FF 14 dungeons are exactly the same from one another. Trash mobs are pointless, you have invisible walls so you can't pull more then 2 packs of mobs.. is it so hard to make dungeons unique?

I don't understand why YoshyP is fine with this.. I refuse to farm these boring dungeons for tomes.

Imo they need to scrap this current dungeon design. It's not fun to play more than a single time... I don't do roulette anymore or any dungeon more than once because I simply don't care enough. I can tome up on pvp or other content that isn't dungeons and I wish more ppl would stop running them to make a point to se that they have no variation or explorability. I don't understand why we catered to people who wanted an easier way... let them leave.. no other game has this and they'll have to learn