Dawntrail's dungeon design has been questionable.

[ddwarbird]

I really think Square Enix should try something new. I know its a risk and the company is protected by a lot of "toxic positivity" and people who genuinely seem to enjoy the status quo but the declining player numbers shows that the game may benefit from some changes.

Firstly, the 1st thing is trash pulls, what are the point of them exactly? The tank just runs off and pulls them all in one go and either out-sustains their damage (Warrior/Paladin) or doesn't and dies, causing a wipe. Are trash pulls really required with the way dungeons are run today?

Secondly, dungeons with more then 3 bosses might add a bit of variety to the game. This has been a bugbear of mine since ARR, you have these wonderful designs and aesthetics (The Burn being my favourite dungeon in the game) and you follow it up with the same amount of trash mobs followed by a boss (in a circular or square arena) followed by another trash wave, rinse repeat.

There has to be something more interesting?

Thirdly, does Square Enix know how to do any other boss mechanics then overlapping damage AOE on the floor, requiring DDR-moves to dodge it? There never seems to be much in the way of engaging mechanics and I think this design choice is mainly the reason that healers have become completely pointless in the game as players can just avoid all damage and the DPS/Tank can self-heal for any mandatory damage that is incoming.

[Mawlzy]

I really think Square Enix should try something new. I know its a risk and the company is protected by a lot of "toxic positivity" and people who genuinely seem to enjoy the status quo but the declining player numbers shows that the game may benefit from some changes.

Firstly, the 1st thing is trash pulls, what are the point of them exactly? The tank just runs off and pulls them all in one go and either out-sustains their damage (Warrior/Paladin) or doesn't and dies, causing a wipe. Are trash pulls really required with the way dungeons are run today?

Secondly, dungeons with more then 3 bosses might add a bit of variety to the game. This has been a bugbear of mine since ARR, you have these wonderful designs and aesthetics (The Burn being my favourite dungeon in the game) and you follow it up with the same amount of trash mobs followed by a boss (in a circular or square arena) followed by another trash wave, rinse repeat.

There has to be something more interesting?

Thirdly, does Square Enix know how to do any other boss mechanics then overlapping damage AOE on the floor, requiring DDR-moves to dodge it? There never seems to be much in the way of engaging mechanics and I think this design choice is mainly the reason that healers have become completely pointless in the game as players can just avoid all damage and the DPS/Tank can self-heal for any mandatory damage that is incoming.

Agree strongly with these points, with a couple of caveats.

I think intra-boss mobs are important, simply for giving a sense of purposeful motion through the dungeon. The problem is, as you note, they've been reduced to a formulaic "round 'em up, mow 'em down" recipe. I guess this predictability helps those whose desire is to run dungeons as rapidly as possible, but it's basically ignoring a massive potential area of design space. Mini-bosses and adds with more interesting mechanics would add a lot of needed interest.

Similarly, boss mechanics are also completely formulaic. Fast-paced, AoE dodgeball may be decent prep for EX+ (probably SE's intention in their continued effort to funnel more players into the content the devs apparently enjoy), but in terms of varied dungeon design it's an absolute disaster. Running a new dungeon for the first time, the only unknown is whether the boss arenas will be squares or circles.

Those creating video guides must be pretty bored of repeating "the first mechanic is a raid-wide, healers be ready..."

[ddwarbird]

I agree with you, maybe intra-boss mobs are important but I feel that FFXIV doesn't use them very effectively. I end up yo-yoing in and out of the game because I really want to love this game (I am a huge fan of FF7 - 10) but the dungeon design just feels it is lacking something other MMO's have, some kind of spontaneity and a sense of adventure.

[Mawlzy]

I agree with you, maybe intra-boss mobs are important but I feel that FFXIV doesn't use them very effectively. I end up yo-yoing in and out of the game because I really want to love this game (I am a huge fan of FF7 - 10) but the dungeon design just feels it is lacking something other MMO's have, some kind of spontaneity and a sense of adventure.

Quite so. Elements that were done far better in ARR. I guess the min-maxers don't care for that sort of thing.

[Arohk]

I think this design choice is mainly the reason that healers have become completely pointless in the game as players can just avoid all damage and the DPS/Tank can self-heal for any mandatory damage that is incoming.

Jobs are not balanced around easy content, dungeons are designed in a way that even the bottom of the barrel of players can clear them.

We have already seen what happened here because DT dungeons are marginaly more difficult than dungeons before.

[ddwarbird]

I've never really understood Square Enix's desire to make mandatory dungeon/trails content part of the MSQ in the first place. I mean you can really get into a flow with the MSQ and bam, brick wall dungeon or trial and it slows down your progress for a bit. I understand that they need to be designed in a way that even bottom of the barrel players can clear them but that seems to make them rather dull and repetitive by sticking to that formula. Would it not make more sense to take them out of the MSQ entirely and allow them to stay optional levelling content so they can design more interesting and varied dungeons?

[Mawlzy]

I've never really understood Square Enix's desire to make mandatory dungeon/trails content part of the MSQ in the first place. I mean you can really get into a flow with the MSQ and bam, brick wall dungeon or trial and it slows down your progress for a bit. I understand that they need to be designed in a way that even bottom of the barrel players can clear them but that seems to make them rather dull and repetitive by sticking to that formula. Would it not make more sense to take them out of the MSQ entirely and allow them to stay optional levelling content so they can design more interesting and varied dungeons?

I think MSQ dungeons/trials can be both easy and interesting. SE is currently failing on both counts by making them faster with more AoE overlap, while at the same time preserving a monothematic design.

It really feels like the whole design process is fitting different boss and add rigs into a rigid template. That's a recipe for boredom.

[Valence]

I really think Square Enix should try something new. I know its a risk and the company is protected by a lot of "toxic positivity" and people who genuinely seem to enjoy the status quo but the declining player numbers shows that the game may benefit from some changes.

Firstly, the 1st thing is trash pulls, what are the point of them exactly? The tank just runs off and pulls them all in one go and either out-sustains their damage (Warrior/Paladin) or doesn't and dies, causing a wipe. Are trash pulls really required with the way dungeons are run today?

Secondly, dungeons with more then 3 bosses might add a bit of variety to the game. This has been a bugbear of mine since ARR, you have these wonderful designs and aesthetics (The Burn being my favourite dungeon in the game) and you follow it up with the same amount of trash mobs followed by a boss (in a circular or square arena) followed by another trash wave, rinse repeat.

There has to be something more interesting?

Thirdly, does Square Enix know how to do any other boss mechanics then overlapping damage AOE on the floor, requiring DDR-moves to dodge it? There never seems to be much in the way of engaging mechanics and I think this design choice is mainly the reason that healers have become completely pointless in the game as players can just avoid all damage and the DPS/Tank can self-heal for any mandatory damage that is incoming.

I wholeheartedly agree but I'd even suggest to crank up the care put behind adds and trash phases. We already have bosses everywhere. Raids and trials have become nothing but bosses (on circular platforms), everything in this game is about bosses, bosses bosses and as you say, not even interesting at that because they'll all about binary DDR. Looking at what we have lost in terms of storytelling and diversity after coils/alex when they decided to entirely remove everything that wasn't a boss, I really, really don't wish that on dungeons.

Boss design needs to be reviewed, but trash even more so, and Criterion has shown that they are perfectly capable of designing interesting trash phases. They can just make them easier since dungeons are casual content, that's about it.

[ddwarbird]

Thank you for your comment. Its a real shame because I really wanted to love this expansion, the music this expansion in my opinion has been better then Endwalker (I was getting tired of constant grunge-rock and other types of rock) and there have been some absolute bangers this expansion (Mid-Boss Dawntrail being my favourite generic boss theme in the series and Vanguard's theme was absolute fire with the techno beats. Haven't enjoyed a dungeon theme so much since The Twinning).

However the bosses and dungeons themselves have been a let down because its more of the same. You have no idea how excited I was when I unlocked Alexandria (being a MASSIVE FFIX fan) but it was just more of the same generic DDR-based slop I've seen over and over again. Even the raid bosses have been boring and to be honest, a little cringy (Honey B Love as an example). It is a real shame. I agree that there should be a place for trash but since all tanks do is wall to wall pulling, it just makes the whole exercise pointless because the trash is never a threat.

[TheInsomniac13]

The last few weeks I read a lot of Forum posts and it feels that a majorety of players do not like the direction this game is heading.
I had a post myself wanting to disgus how mob pulls and bosses in general could be inproved but to be realistic. Doing so would need the devs to rework to much of the game and they would never do that.
Meanwhile Job design gets more and more boring to the point were it all feels like 1 homogen mush to play pick you colore.
A friend of mine sayed FF 14 is a good visual novel interupted with average to bad time waster. The emphasis most players seem to have is Stormblood peaked in design while others say it was good but they prefear Heavensward or even ARR. It was rather clear in these posts that the majorety who got to expirience the design of past content are not satesfied with current design choices at all.