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

[Mikey_R]

While I do understand the logic, I do feel this is fear mongering as it's absolutely not true. Every toto rak run I've had had a 50/50 chance for the tank to go one of the two branches and people just followed. Never once I've seen someone talk about a wrong path, or mentioning a meta, or seeing any friction in parties between members.

But you never went everywhere, you done the bare minimum to get through, which is the point being made. Haukke Manor, Halatali, Dzemael Darkhold and more, all dungeons with extra areas that noone does. The biggest example I do want to point out is Sunkern Temple of Qarn. It has puzzles to solve that give rewards, but they aren't worth it, so noone does them. This is to the point where noone even collects the stones for the scales at the end, instead failing the puzzle as it saves a trash pack and so, makes it quicker.

This is why I say, players will just find the spawns, methodically work out the quickest route, and follow that, only breaking out when they get the 'key'. Mimics in Hullbreaker Isle is probably the closest we get to this idea, you need to kill a certain amount, but you don't know which chests they are in. There is the little side area with some chests in which I believe has a very small chance to not contain a mimic, but it is more efficient, on average, to take that slight detour and check. If the odds were the other way around, where it was more likely there would be no mimics in that area, I would almost guarantee it would be skipped more often than not, only back tracking, which isn't that far, when they get some bad luck.

If you want people to go into the optional areas, you need to incentivise them and even then, they will optimise the route to take. That is the nature of doing the same dungeon many, many times over.

That's what I had in mind as well but I'd rather avoid adding even more tokens and currencies in a game that is already literally riddled with those and it's become such a maze especially at endgame hubs (or even wolves den pier).
But if that's what it takes then sure I guess even though I'd rather have something like a quest reward window at the end of a dungeon asking me if I want xp, tomes or whatever.

That is an issue, however, on the flipside, either tomes/exp/Gil isn't going to be enough to entice people into side areas, so you need more. They also need to have options that cover as many players as possible to encourage as many players as possible to do these optional areas. When you start adding in many, many rewards, what started out as a short menu has now turned into something bigger which would get tedious to navigate through everytime you leave a dungeon. This is why I proposed a vendor. I know the currency issue is there, it is something that did cross my mind, however I do think it is necessary for the scope I had in mind.

[BigCheez]

But you never went everywhere, you done the bare minimum to get through, which is the point being made. Haukke Manor, Halatali, Dzemael Darkhold and more, all dungeons with extra areas that noone does. The biggest example I do want to point out is Sunkern Temple of Qarn. It has puzzles to solve that give rewards, but they aren't worth it, so noone does them. This is to the point where noone even collects the stones for the scales at the end, instead failing the puzzle as it saves a trash pack and so, makes it quicker.

This is why I say, players will just find the spawns, methodically work out the quickest route, and follow that, only breaking out when they get the 'key'. Mimics in Hullbreaker Isle is probably the closest we get to this idea, you need to kill a certain amount, but you don't know which chests they are in. There is the little side area with some chests in which I believe has a very small chance to not contain a mimic, but it is more efficient, on average, to take that slight detour and check. If the odds were the other way around, where it was more likely there would be no mimics in that area, I would almost guarantee it would be skipped more often than not, only back tracking, which isn't that far, when they get some bad luck.

If you want people to go into the optional areas, you need to incentivise them and even then, they will optimise the route to take. That is the nature of doing the same dungeon many, many times over.



That is an issue, however, on the flipside, either tomes/exp/Gil isn't going to be enough to entice people into side areas, so you need more. They also need to have options that cover as many players as possible to encourage as many players as possible to do these optional areas. When you start adding in many, many rewards, what started out as a short menu has now turned into something bigger which would get tedious to navigate through everytime you leave a dungeon. This is why I proposed a vendor. I know the currency issue is there, it is something that did cross my mind, however I do think it is necessary for the scope I had in mind.

I think you're missing the point.

Yes, players will find the optimal paths. Finding the optimal paths is fun. It makes dungeons more interesting when they're new. The modern FFXIV dungeons are boring before you've even played them.

[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.

[Mistress_Irika]

Explorer Mode exists. This isn't an issue.

I feel really sorry for the new players that are coming. Oh well.
With comments like this, I'm starting to think that the ARR dungeons rework at the end of the game wasn't a mistake. I'll be expecting more reworks on the old dungeons in the future.

[BigCheez]

I feel really sorry for the new players that are coming. Oh well.
With comments like this, I'm starting to think that the ARR dungeons rework at the end of the game wasn't a mistake. I'll be expecting more reworks on the old dungeons in the future.

I really don't think it's an issue if people have to use trusts/duty support or explorer mode to get pointless achievements that serve no purpose. It certainly isn't a "problem" worth compromising the design of the content over.

[Gortys]

FFXIV players: W2W pulling is the only way.
Also FFXIV players: Why is this so linear? It's so boring running from the entry to a wall.

Also, people were complaining that sprouts wanted to go down the hallways that they felt were useless. They didn't like that there was this one chest in view and the sprout would go down the hallway for something that wasn't worth it to someone at max level. The devs listened and now they don't like the result.

I do wish hard modes would come back at least.

[MsQi]

FFXIV players: W2W pulling is the only way.
Also FFXIV players: Why is this so linear? It's so boring running from the entry to a wall.

Those are likely different people most of the time.

[Shurrikhan]

FFXIV players: W2W pulling is the only way.
Also FFXIV players: Why is this so linear? It's so boring running from the entry to a wall.

Those are likely different people most of the time.

It's hardly ironic even if spoken by the same people.

If dungeon design prevents players from even the chance of facing any real danger, then there's no reason for said players not to pull everything each time.

In removing a potential point of tension (between more confident and less confident players), the developers' inclusion of pace-limiters (walls) will have also removed any felt variance in pull size and therefore the "stopping/pausing points".

If a W2W pull is only really doable by some 40% of players, it scarcely becomes the norm. If doable by 90% (even if only half may at first think it doable), it quickly becomes something people are expected to do. Which is normal and fine.

[Claria-Vivian]

easy fix is make dumb content with NPC for players that got no skills. So you suck at playing? que with NPC the dungeon will be nerfed to be easy as pie... actualy a lot easier than making a pie. You want challange? que with players than. Dungeon will have harder mechanics and players who enjoy BLM (which is now so easy, smashing keys at random will still make you top player) to have some challenge at least outside of Savage/Ultimate.

[Valence]

But you never went everywhere, you done the bare minimum to get through, which is the point being made. Haukke Manor, Halatali, Dzemael Darkhold and more, all dungeons with extra areas that noone does. The biggest example I do want to point out is Sunkern Temple of Qarn. It has puzzles to solve that give rewards, but they aren't worth it, so noone does them. This is to the point where noone even collects the stones for the scales at the end, instead failing the puzzle as it saves a trash pack and so, makes it quicker.

This is why I say, players will just find the spawns, methodically work out the quickest route, and follow that, only breaking out when they get the 'key'. Mimics in Hullbreaker Isle is probably the closest we get to this idea, you need to kill a certain amount, but you don't know which chests they are in. There is the little side area with some chests in which I believe has a very small chance to not contain a mimic, but it is more efficient, on average, to take that slight detour and check. If the odds were the other way around, where it was more likely there would be no mimics in that area, I would almost guarantee it would be skipped more often than not, only back tracking, which isn't that far, when they get some bad luck.

If you want people to go into the optional areas, you need to incentivise them and even then, they will optimise the route to take. That is the nature of doing the same dungeon many, many times over.

All I can say is that rng is one of the best answers to a lot of things like these. This is why the prisoners in CLL were a decent example, while a lot of the older ARR stuff was not. But even though we could consider something like sastasha or brayflox or whatever, as some people have said, even without rng you can ensure people visit most of them as long as the rewards are worth it.