New Dungeons are soulless...

[Elixir]

Why on earth are all of the Dungeons the same now? Is this something the playerbase wants? Older Dungeons had way more charm to them, now they are completely soulless.

For instance, here is a Dungeon in Endwalker:

Step 1: Grab 2 packs of mobs, AOE them down.
Step 2: Go through Barrier/Door.
Step 3: Grab 2 packs of mobs, AOE them down.
Step 4: Go to Boss arena, fight boss.
Repeat 1-4 x2

The boss fights are great, even the Dungeons themselves look great. But it is sad that they feel so formulaic, maybe I am wrong. What do you think? Also, is this something the Devs have addressed already? Please let me know!

[causality]

Originally posted by Nokkternal:

For instance, here is a Dungeon in Endwalker:

Step 1: Grab 2 packs of mobs, AOE them down.
Step 2: Go through Barrier/Door.
Step 3: Grab 2 packs of mobs, AOE them down.
Step 4: Go to Boss arena, fight boss.

That's just modern MMO design and it's not exclusive to FFXIV. Older games like EQ/EQ2, DAoC or old WoW all had huge instanced content. I think the intent was to shift gameplay into something easier/more focused/casual instead of making players spend a lot of time/effort exploring huge instances. Wouldn't suggest one is better than the other but I personally enjoyed those instances like AQ40/Naxx that took an hour or more to clear. Dungeons like Stratholme had 2 branching paths and were large enough that many people made groups dedicated to only 1 side.

[Катюша]

No, it's true, the newer content is cookie cutter at this point. Square Enix are scared to try anything new with FFXIV, unfortunately. I guess that's the price of chasing the majority.

[Stormy Dawn]

Personally I don't really mind it, but I can see why some would feel differently.

The handful of dungeons that break that mold are ones that I audibly groan when I get for a roulette and otherwise try to avoid doing because I find the times that they do try something a little different it ends up being really shallow or simply annoying to get through quickly.

The game is a bit stagnant in design, but to be frank that's every modern, popular MMO. All the "big" ones are afraid to try anything drastic in fear of losing subscribers. Despite their sizes, Activision-Blizzard and Square Enix would both be feeling the hurt if their respective MMOs were to suddenly take a huge nosedive, and they know it.

Innovation often takes a backseat to normalcy and stability. It's easy to be an outside observer and be upset at that, but from a business perspective it's not so clear-cut.

[Horn]

While I agree that there was more variety in the earlier dungeons, it's a damn pain to replay them when you're leveling up new jobs. I got so used to the new dungeons that when I decided to level up a paladin, I literally quit the game for a while. There are too many obscure objectives, the locations are too open, you constantly have to run around in circles in different places and collect items.

No thanks, I'm glad they don't do that anymore.

[Dex]

Because players complained when they had to backtrack and go through mazes in dungeons. Think of it this way, when you've done a dungeon 50 times, nothing is new, you don't want to explore, you just want to finish it. That's why they streamlined them all.

[Mordys]

Still better than wow was at the start. Only the first dungeon was under 30min. Then as you went up in level the dungeond became longer/harder. Scholomance full clear was a nightmare. When my firend told me "let's clear out Stratholme both side for fun"........ehhh

[FreshMint]

Originally posted by Dex:

Because players complained when they had to backtrack and go through mazes in dungeons. Think of it this way, when you've done a dungeon 50 times, nothing is new, you don't want to explore, you just want to finish it. That's why they streamlined them all.

This.

After doing a dungeon a bunch of times a lot of people will probably not be quite up for exploring it in great detail, which is why dungeons generally don't do bonus rooms anymore- they tend to get ignored anyway.
Tossing in puzzles is also a problem because you might be with someone that has already figured out that puzzle, and not everyone is happy with waiting for someone new to figure it out.

Fortunately, variant dungeons exist, which have branching paths that, while still mostly ahdere to a standard format otherwise, do throw in the occasional puzzle or two to figure out how to enter a specific path. And these paths change how the boss acts too!

[Jon]

I dont mind linear and formulaic dungeons. My issue is how braindead easy they are. Trash has zero mechanics and bosses can be killed blindly unless they have party wipe mechanic.
I dont want dungeons to be savage level. But at least increase difficulty so people need to know what what to do instead of going in without knowing anything and finsihing dungeon zero deaths

[FreshMint]

Originally posted by Chakravartin:

I dont mind linear and formulaic dungeons. My issue is how braindead easy they are. Trash has zero mechanics and bosses can be killed blindly unless they have party wipe mechanic.
I dont want dungeons to be savage level. But at least increase difficulty so people need to know what what to do instead of going in without knowing anything and finsihing dungeon zero deaths

Getting used to content either way is still a thing but yeah I wish dungeons started getting a bit more rougher.
Problem is tho they still want to allow people to progress the story even if they're not very good at the game.

[Jon]

Originally posted by FreshMint:

Originally posted by Chakravartin:

I dont mind linear and formulaic dungeons. My issue is how braindead easy they are. Trash has zero mechanics and bosses can be killed blindly unless they have party wipe mechanic.
I dont want dungeons to be savage level. But at least increase difficulty so people need to know what what to do instead of going in without knowing anything and finsihing dungeon zero deaths

Getting used to content either way is still a thing but yeah I wish dungeons started getting a bit more rougher.
Problem is tho they still want to allow people to progress the story even if they're not very good at the game.

This is where they could use trust system to help people who suck. People can choose to do dungeons with other players at normal difficulty which would be harder than what we have now or doing it with npcs on story mode difficulty which would be what we have now.
Also there is no excuse to reach endwalker and still suck at basics.

[FreshMint]

Originally posted by Chakravartin:

Originally posted by FreshMint:

Getting used to content either way is still a thing but yeah I wish dungeons started getting a bit more rougher.
Problem is tho they still want to allow people to progress the story even if they're not very good at the game.

This is where they could use trust system to help people who suck. People can choose to do dungeons with other players at normal difficulty which would be harder than what we have now or doing it with npcs on story mode difficulty which would be what we have now.
Also there is no excuse to reach endwalker and still suck at basics.

I mean I agree fully with that people should at least know the basics and have a proper grasp on them but I also aknowledge that there's people just vibing and doing the story, so that difficulty should not be pushed too hard.

[Doonix]

Originally posted by Chakravartin:

I dont mind linear and formulaic dungeons. My issue is how braindead easy they are. Trash has zero mechanics and bosses can be killed blindly unless they have party wipe mechanic.
I dont want dungeons to be savage level. But at least increase difficulty so people need to know what what to do instead of going in without knowing anything and finsihing dungeon zero deaths

that would be good in endgame, but only in endgame. Cuz yesterday I found a tryhard guy in normal doma castle dg, we clear all dg until last boss, before we enter the fight the dude just freaked out on me, i was playing this dg with bard for the first time, then he closed the dg just cuz i wasnt playing like he wants lmao.
Now imagine this happening in a hard dungeon from early game with frequency, new players will just keep away from this game

[Thiamath]

I think that is one reason they're investing on criterion dungeons, even tho the rewards for them aren't that great imo xd

[Sunny]

The hard content exists for the exact reason it's being asked for here. There's plenty of it. MSQ required stuff is braindead easy intentionally, and they're only making it MORE accessible to people (stated design goal with duty support, evidenced by the reworks that several dungeons have gone through to make them easier when they're added to duty support).

I get wanting to be challenged, but please go do the content that's supposed to challenge you, rather than asking for the babytown stuff to be made harder.

It exists. Go do it. They made it JUST FOR YOU.

[causality]

Originally posted by Sunny:

It exists. Go do it. They made it JUST FOR YOU.

Kaiten is still not coming back though kekg.