Quote Originally Posted by Hycinthus View Post
Did it start in Endwalker? Zone design and traversal is
The formula we have today has been there almost entirely since Heavensward. Changes has been rare, but when it has changed, it's also become a part of said formula.
I think what’s aggravating to me is I see formulaic everywhere with every expansion and patches. Everything follows a set rule. A set number of dungeon every patch, a set of pulls , a set of this that. Everything is following some set rule.
To a degree it needs to though. If they don't have a set number of dungeons, and only have them when the story naturally demands it, the result is potentially just 1 or 2 dungeons and trials at the end. And then people would say that's predictable! But so are films predictable - we know the protagonist will win. It's about how they win.

Consistency with pulls is mostly to do with an issue that actually still exists in some ARR dungeons where you can pull something like 10 mob packs. And although it is easier to deal with now, the further back in time you go, a lot of healers could not handle it with the kit they had or it depended a lot on all 4 players being good at playing, which isn't realistic when there's almost always 1 or more new/returning players.

With consistency, I know what I'm getting so I can safely get a 6 month subscription.

You're right that you can predict how the story goes quite a lot by the level of FATEs in the area and knowing that you will get a dungeon at X1, X3, X5, X7, X9, X0 and trials at X3, X9 and X0. But if they didn't do that then it's not spaced out enough. ARR suffers from that where you suddenly do 3 dungeons in a row, then nothing for ages, and it's tedious enough that when I get to them it's time to sleep so I'm recharged to do them the next day.