For all those complaining about stale dungeons: from a beta player perspective

[KitiaraIornsight]

I actually started playing FFXIV when it was a 2 week closed beta run for PS3. And yes, a TON of things have changed since.
But I keep seeing people complaining about how dungeons are just one long hallway in the same format over and over, and well there is a REASON why that's developed.
Its because speed runners looking for quick clears SKIPPED exploring the dungeon. Once players learned the quickest route to each boss, the vet players even when grouped up with a sprout promptly lead them down the fast path ignoring the fact that there is an in game mapping achievement for every dungeon and took them straight to the boss. This was sooooooooooo egregious they literally chopped out 99% of the content from the original MSQ because of this behavior after they had to block cutscene skipping for people speed running Prae and Castrum.
So why on earth would they change the dungeon format and formula AT ALL when speed runners always dictate the path, pace and course of the dungeon runs? Even with varient/criterion dungeons and ATTEMPT to get people to explore dungeons, 99% of speed runners figured out which of the 3 paths was shorter with the easier of the boss variations and that's the path they always take, screw exploration. Why waste resources coding content that gets skipped 99.9% of the time.
Shoot, before they changed some of the 2.0 dungeons to fit the new formula, I remember some players getting MAD by other players who wanted to open the entire maps.
The other day on an alt I took a group through sastasha and opened the whole map. 2 were level 100 players that didn't know you could rescue prisoners in the dungeon and there were hidden chests.
So while everyone complains about dungeons, your speed runners in their daily roulettes have locked us into this format, because they want to be in and out of a dungeon in under 15 mins period, no exceptions, the rest of the group can kick rocks.

Now that being said, I would like to see us go back to unique dungeons that have more explorations. I'd love to see more optional dungeons being dropped with variations of other dungeons we already have such as the hard modes we received from 2.0-4.0 but once covid came, they used that as an excuse to cut the content and increase the patch cycle lengths with no intention of returning to the 6 week cycle we originally had for new stuff.

I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you unless the VAST majority (the people NOT in these forums) of players decided they are willing to spend more than 10-15 mins on a dungeon we will never see the old format come back and Variants will be dead after 2-3 weeks once all the drops from gil hounds are gathered and listed for 35,000,000 gil on the markets.

[Valence]

And SE in their usual fashion took upon to decide that if something is flawed, it's better to delete everything down to blandness instead of fixing it.

[Striker44]

And SE in their usual fashion took upon to decide that if something is flawed, it's better to delete everything down to blandness instead of fixing it.

How do you "fix" the humans that make up the playerbase?

[Supersnow845]

How do you "fix" the humans that make up the playerbase?

Acknowledge that there will always be conflict in a game where people play with each other and not attempt to remove all points of conflict for little change because people still argue?

[Shinku_Tachi]

Acknowledge that there will always be conflict in a game where people play with each other and not attempt to remove all points of conflict for little change because people still argue?

This is really a great point.

This game was saved back in the day by the devs *rationally* taking player feedback into account.

But, I've also seen games completely ruined by devs whose hearts were in the right place, trying to address *every* conflict and concern brought up in player feedback to appease everyone. There has to be balance, and listening is good, but deference should also be given to player data; because, while feedback is great, not all feedback is good or useful feedback.

[Valence]

How do you "fix" the humans that make up the playerbase?

There are things that can be addressed by how the layout works, and some that don't.
The exploratory part of it for example, will only work the first weeks at release until people decide "the meta" and everybody that deviates will be screamed at in parties.
But introducing variations through different paths chosen at random by the system or having a more dynamic layout is definitely a solution. There can also be map based specific objectives with a little rng involved like the prisoners back in CLL, forcing players to actually explore what has to be explored for said objectives. If said objectives yield more rewards (tomes, xp, and loot) then people will try to go for them.

[BigCheez]

Its because speed runners looking for quick clears SKIPPED exploring the dungeon. Once players learned the quickest route to each boss, the vet players even when grouped up with a sprout promptly lead them down the fast path ignoring the fact that there is an in game mapping achievement for every dungeon and took them straight to the boss. This was sooooooooooo egregious they literally chopped out 99% of the content from the original MSQ because of this behavior after they had to block cutscene skipping for people speed running Prae and Castrum.

This doesn't make a lick of sense.

Yes, people will optimise their dungeon runs and cut out unnecessary rooms/mobs once they know the layout. Creating dungeons that allow for players to actually make those optimisation makes the dungeons infinitely more fun on their first few playthroughs though. And new players have the option to team up with friends or other new players if they want a slower-paced first run through the dungeon.

This is the epitome of SE's approach to design. If something isn't working perfectly, they don't even try to improve it, they just gut it completely. "Players were skipping the extra rooms in dungeons so we solved the problem by making dungeons so boring that they aren't even fun the first time you play them". Nice one. Great job.

[Altina_Orion]

Frankly, I care less about the hallway thing and more about the lack of engaging trash. Also, I hate that nothing truly punishes you. A lot of bosses you can just stand still and win.

[BigCheez]

Frankly, I care less about the hallway thing and more about the lack of engaging trash.

I'd like both.

I wish dungeon layouts were more interesting. There should be packs that can be skipped. Larger sections that give the players the autonomy to decide if they want to do it in 1 pull or break it into 2. If they don't want people to run the same optimised path every time, they could add some RNG elements and have multiple paths with where 1 is blocked off sometimes, different doors that are open or closed sometimes, etc. There are a lot of options that they could experiment with.

I'd also like to see some more interesting mobs. Abilities to stun/interrupt, roaming minibosses that can be CCd while you're fighting the surrounding trash, etc.

Dungeons in XIV are just wasted potential. It's sad.

[TeresaFortell]

Frankly, I care less about the hallway thing and more about the lack of engaging trash. Also, I hate that nothing truly punishes you. A lot of bosses you can just stand still and win.

It's really a part of a bigger issue in DT. Many elements were streamlined for a better gameplay experience, but this had the opposite effect, and it alienated many players as a result.