Shifting Sands skip removed from Cutter's Cry. Let's talk about that.

[Healiam]

is this really a big issue though? The question is whether removing the skip now results in needing to clear the entire group or whether its just a few. Either way, its never really been that much of a time save. It gives the illusion of it. But at most its 2-3 minutes.

IMHO this thread is brewing a storm in a tea cup. Especially when you consider that in exchange the dungeon has duty support now. Its an old dungeon afterall, most are not likely to run it at all.

Yes, you are right. It is not a huge deal, however, Square Enix still saw it fit to remove the skippable adds, so they speak for themselves. Perhaps it is a new mindset change for designing dungeons. The question is, do you prefer it as it is now or how it was before? If you get new Cutter's Cry in Levelling Roulette, will you find it more or less fun with the changes?

It is not the first time they've changed a dungeon for the worse. Anytime they update a duty they will also bloat the HP value of the bosses, making it take longer compared to non-updated ones and harder for those who don't have good gear to deal with it. An example of this is Castrum Abania, where the 2nd boss received a huge HP pool compared to its previous version. Its mechanics were also less interesting and requires you to not think anymore. So if you want an answer to "is this really a big issue though?", then yes, as their terrible design decisions does add up as they keep making them. Similarly, the "2-3 minutes" adds up with everyone completing the dungeon. The "Its an old dungeon after all, most are not likely to run it at all". Unfortunately this is also untrue, as the biggest chunk of the player base will have access to this dungeon. A lot of people are looking to rank up in their Grand Company, which requires the dungeon mob hunts. Sure, it has duty support now, but it is clear which option is faster among player vs NPC. And once it's unlocked, it will show up in their Levelling Roulette, taking you at level 100 into it as well.

Do you want to play this game where everything is a damage sponge, or do you want exciting, fun and interesting duties? Being compliant with this change makes it look like you support the first option.

[Healiam]

If it was up to me i'd use this dungeon as a perfect excuse to introduce the sand blasts seen earlier before the Myrmidon Princess there as well, but they'd harm you or the mobs indistinctly. Some could even be quicksand that would engulf mobs caught in it and delete them out of the map. I think that would be fun, you'd just lead them to those traps as you run through. I'd like seeing some novel and fun unique environmental compromises like this.

This is exactly why I wanted to make this post. There are so many better ideas they could've implemented to AT LEAST make the dungeon interesting enough so you wouldn't notice that it took longer to complete. I despise the lazy updates that creates time sinks, rather than gameplay elements. As they updated Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, they also removed one of the few dungeons with a unique layout. It is faster now I think, but it has been made into slop that is uninteresting.

[Elephantality]

I'm happy this happened. I'm not interested in speed running and skipping mobs, I like engaging with mobs.

[Healiam]

I'm happy this happened. I'm not interested in speed running and skipping mobs, I like engaging with mobs.

It's not about speed running. It's about making the game interesting and fun. I do like engaging with mobs as well, but at this level, my rotation boils down to 1 button, which is not very engaging. That is why I ask for them to make something different content wise to make up for the lack of mechanical content present compared to a level 100 dungeon, where you actually have to focus on your rotation to get it right. I am asking for a tad bit more innovation in the dungeon design that is not just trash->trash->boss->trash->trash->boss etc. You would enjoy it more as well if you were to give it a thought.

[Birdbrain]

Ran Cutter's Cry around 25 times in a row last Moogle event, so any changes made to the dungeon were pretty noticeable to me.

I'd say a good 80% of my runs had people skipping the mobs no problem; I'd always ask 'Run or fight?' just to make sure. A few times some people in the party didn't want to skip and preferred killing them which was perfectly fine. However, those handfuls of times where there was a miscommunication or a new player didn't understand, I could see that being a really bad experience for them. People would get left behind because they didn't understand what everyone else was doing, die, and then be effectively stranded until the rest of the party pulled the boss (which not everyone knew would offer a port to the dead player).

I imagine it's very frustrating to get killed in such a cheap way because you were 'out of the know' or caught on too late. Playing the "can I hit the pop-up prompt before mobs interrupt me" game isn't very fun either. I can understand why they changed that part of the dungeon for that reason alone. I did like having a reason to communicate with my party though.

Some kind of proper mob gauntlet run in dungeons, like you find in other games, could be fun to have. Sections of dungeons where you kite mobs instead of killing them would be different and maybe even employ some of those rarely used spells. I'd like to see that. Not sure Cutter's Cry specifically was the place for it, seeing as they also altered the bosses to be even easier/simpler the same patch.

[Kahnha]

Killing the mobs should still award exp Idk why they removed that w/o any reward for killing them adds are just a chore to deal with.

[Frizze]

Killing the mobs should still award exp Idk why they removed that w/o any reward for killing them adds are just a chore to deal with.

We were told two reasons, i make no claim as to the truth. One was that with side rooms/extra mobs having exp you had potentially two goals at odds with each other. The newer leveling player who wanted every bit of exp they could get from the dungeon, and the experienced player who wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible and saw no benefit from the tiny bit of exp lost by skipping them. The second was that you would see bot groups(and the occasional min-max group) go into a dungeon(often aurum vale), kill the mobs in the first room, and leave without fighting the first boss - then que again. We were told something vague about this causing issues with the servers. So the mob exp was removed, and it was added as extra exp on the bosses which could potentially solve both problems. Or so we were told.