Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Dungeons and Trials pre-50 are poor design choices, and will eventually be changed!
BearKnight
Member CommonPosts: 461
Hear me out.
Currently, pre-50 dungeons give horribly low experience reward as well as easily outleveled pathetic gear. Even the gear drops are scarce not to mention few and far between (like 3-4 bosses per instance, each one dropping ONE item each time that more often than not aren't even for the classes/jobs playing said instance). This can lead to one or two people getting all 3-4 drops in an instance while no one else getting anything.
Additionally, the gil drops come from side-treasure chests that are designed to eat up your time in the instance. Most groups won't even go for them anymore in order to maximize speed in lvl 50 dungeons. This is because they drop 8 pieces of "gil packs" that each sell for like 250-500 gil (normally 8 drop that give 25, 250, or 500 gil depending on level of dungeon, each). However, all 8 go to one person in the group. Meaning there may end up being a handful of side-treasure chests maximizing to about 16, 24, or 32 pieces dropping total. I also didn't notice a "Round Robin" system in place here. It just seemed to randomly go to a person in the group.
Long story short, dungeons pre-50 just are NOT worth repeating whatsoever, and the small amount of gear drops coupled with how easily you out level them further decrease anyone's desire to re-run them to essentially zero.
The problem here, is that firstly they've obviously spent a lot of design time on these dungeons. So they've ended up being wastes of development time in their current state.
Secondly, MANY of these dungeons are Story-Blockers. Meaning you cannot progress your story without completing it. Anyone with half a brain can see that "Eventually" new players will hit a road-block and will REQUIRE help from people in order to go back and do these story dungeons because no one needs them anymore and is queueing up for them. Afterall, anyone who is queued up to do them NEEDs them, and even so soon after launch this is becoming a problem.
This, in my opinion, is why they MUST change, and whomever designed the reward system for dungeons didn't weigh them next to FATES as currently FATES give nearly 5 TIMES the experience per hour that a dungeon spammer will. It currently is talked about in /shout quite a bit on my server (Behemouth), and my FC has made it a mission of ours to form lowbie groups for new people in our FC so they can at least progress. We had a level 15 guy sitting in queue for a dungeon for 5hrs, and he got so frustrated he wanted to quit the game already 
!
Anyone else feel this way?
Comments
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
no. I enjoy helping people out that need to do a dungeon. I'm not the only one. I guess if you're more concerned with gear and leveling fast, the dungeons aren't appealing. But if you enjoy small group combat and tactics, and generally are a helpful person, dungeons are an ideal venue.
The problem that you're missing is that there aren't many people like you. Like, maybe a handful per server. That isn't enough to warrant the dungeon's in their current system. The experience is horrible and the gear is nothing special as you out level it within a day.
Its true dungeons are not the greatest source of xp, but Fates are in open world. As far as the gear drops, it does sometimes feel like all tank gear drops whole dungeon sometimes, or all caster in some cases. I think its really luck of the draw, but you cannot roll need on something that is not for the class your currently using, which is kind of understandble, since everyone who has that job should get first shot at it, without having to compete with others to get it if they roll need.
As for the gil drops, the allgerian coins that can be sold to venders for small amounts of gil, should probably be looked at, since the coins that drop are not as great as the progression of the level of the dungeons. 100 gil drops in dungeons that should be dropping 500, and 500 in dungeons that should be droping 2500.
I can agree with you that repeating lower lvl dungeons are not worth it, that is unless you start leveling up your alt jobs and classes, which will probably keep them alive. In FFXI I leveled 20 jobs to 99, so I can attest that will probably be happening here in FFXIV also.
I think after 15 dungeons get really really tough and need planing and well thought out gameplay, so I like yourself think that there should be a bit of a greater reward during this, but I'm sure crafters will disagree, because crafted gear tends to be the best of every level up to end game content it seems.
Finally I think yes, the dungeons unlocks are very annoying, but theres alot of rewards you need the main storyline for, even at end game to unlock hard mode on all the primals ifrit, titan, and guaruda, and I think this was to force us to have to do the storyline even if you dont like storylines, for the sake of endgame.
I pretty much agree with everything, from differant view points but try to explain how I look at it.
This seems to me to be a design decision that caters to the crafters, to have what you're asking for would seriously negate the usefulness of crafted gear, and the profession itself. It then becomes a side activity and not a central part of the core design. That's what has baffled me about the emphasis put on crafted gear and crafting professions in a game that's largely going to be approached as a gear/dungeon grinder. They have to try and reach a good balance, which it's going to be awfully hard to please both camps for a period of time.
Anyone who knows crafters ( vets of SWG and UO) know they can be pretty outspoken when it comes to what's offered through gear grinds, and what they're capable of creating. They typically want to be able to offer the top tier. Where as raiders prefer top tier to be achieved through high end gated content. These two apples didn't fall from the same tree.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The problem that you're missing is that there aren't many people like you. Like, maybe a handful per server. That isn't enough to warrant the dungeon's in their current system. The experience is horrible and the gear is nothing special as you out level it within a day.
Hm well since you have no proof that there arent a lot of people like myself I can only go by my experience which shows there are actually quite a lot.
Vocal minority shouts the loudest typically and forum climate is almost always the polar opposite in game. Just in my experience of course.
Since all that is left is to argue if more or less people are helpful than we think, it becomes pointless to discuss further. But I doubt your OP is crusade worthy. But it is late, you could just be bored since you cant play right now. Least thats why im bothering to reply to all your negative threads about the game heh.
You outlevel within 3-4 hours of normal gameplay? (i.e. not fate rushing in 8 man groups)
When the people who genuinly wants to do the lv15 dungeons is low, it is time for people to start communicating and using the FCs. If you are in a FC and you aren't willing to help out lower level people without any thought of being "rewarded", then I suggest that newbie to leave your FC.
People can do shouts and state precisely how long time they've waited. I am willing to be that more than enough people are willing to help out. There is a major difference between shouting "LFM sastasha" and shouting "Could someone please come and help us with sastasha`? We've been waiting for hours and need 1 more member".
I feel you there. I have run Ifrit hard mode atleast 20 times now, and 1 blm drop, probably 10 scholar book drops.....
I dont think the OP is concerned with only gear and leveling fast. I also dont think there is alot of people that only care about only one thing in the game or another. I think there is many differant aspects of the game people like more then other aspects of games. The OP is expresing himself on an aspect of the game he probably most enjoys doing. People like Foomerang and myself, love other parts of the game and dont care as much about dungeons and what we get from them so we dont really speak up or run them as often as maybe the OP does.
You don't seem to realize that the person you're responding to IS the OP. Leveling fast and gear is exactly what he is complaining about. Claiming that the dungeons a) dont give enough XP and b) dont give enough, or good enough, loot drops.
It is something he doesnt enjoy doing, as he stated several times they arent worth repeating, and so likely doesnt run them often.
Personally I disagree with him on most of his points. Ive been leveling a new class, a healer, and have been running dungeons since last night (since I can get pretty much instant queues) and am gaining nearly 2 levels per dungeon and picking up gear that is still better than any other available gear for several more levels.
The issue with gear not lasting long is relative. Some people will level slowly, some will power level. If youre power leveling, then of course the gear isnt going to last you more than a day. That's your choice to level the way you are. What is SE supposed to do, give you gear that is equal to max level gear in earlier level dungeons?
As far as the loot and not getting buttloads of gold out of each chest... You know there is this little thing called an economy that exists in MMOs. All that loot that you cant use for your class that you get out of those chests, sell them on the market to people who are complaining about the same thing... not getting the drops they need for their class. You also get lots of crafting mats that drop from the mobs (some of them which sell for several hundred to several thousand gold each), as well as shard drops which you can also sell if youre not using them yourself for crafting and turn plenty of profit.
All I really see from OP is complaining that:
1) Dungeons arent designed to be used for power leveling to 50 in a day or 2
2) Power leveling through fate grinding makes the gear you do get from dungeons not worth the time invested because you out level it quickly
3) He doesnt have the sense to realize that direct gold drops are not the only method of making money from dungeons and is upset that every chest doesnt give everyone in the dungeon thousands of gold
Actually I find a dungeon run gives you more exp than 3 or more fates with food and guild exp buff.
At around 45-49 most fates give on 10k to 12k whereas each mob in a dungeon gives on 1k to 2k EACH plus each boss giving on 6-7k.
3 FATEs are faster to complete, FATE mobs also give you xp, bonuses from
party/food is also applied.
So no, dungeons are nowhere near that.
SexuaLobster's Grease Portal
Linking main progression to running dungeons will, as the OP points out, become a problem when there are not many people at that level to run them. This will mean that new players will find it hard to progress in their story line missions.
Even players rolliing new classes will not help as they do not require these dungeons as part of their story line mission anymore, if they gave a lot of XP then perhaps you would see more alt-class players grinding them but that does not seem to be the case.
@OP
Even if Fate grinding would reward you with 10 times the xp you get from running a dungeon I would not grind them. Fun >>>> XP
Only thing you are right about is that gil reward should be distributed to the whole group and maybe (but only maybe) that loot drops could be smarter.
Beside that, not everyone is playing a game only based on "efficency". Try it yourself, remove the xp bar from ui or hide it and just do those things in game which are fun to you. xp will come in anyway and you will enjoy your time much more.
I also disagree on your remark that most people are not willing to help or rerun already done dungeons or other content.
Sorry OP, we are just too different I fear. No common ground here.
The loot in dungeons SUUUUUCCCKKKKKK. I remember multiple times where the whole group stood there going " Uh......thats the loot? " . Who knows if that will get tweaked or not.
But dungeons are cool to pop into when you are saturated with the normal questing stuff. But I dont know if dungeon exp is better than fates due to the fact that some times you sit there and wait for ever for your afk person to become un afk. Fates you run in, kill crap, maybe die, then BAM!! exp and stuff.
Isn't this just normal? Can't remember any MMO in the past where I played pre-maxlevel dungeons more than a few times. Why the heck would I? Players are funneled into endless content repetition soon enough, why would anyone chose to do that voluntarily?
People who are saying dungeons are fine as it is are missing a very important thing. Lack of good XP in dungeons is hurting game over all because more and more people are zerging FATES.
Thanks to dimnishing guildhests XP (seriously whose dumb idea was this), lack of side quests, limited leves with bad xp is all just funneling people into grinding fates.
Fixing XP will go in a long way to distribute the leveling population a bit so that players don't just burn out on FATES.
Right now the only way to level alts is FATE grinding..period. No one goes to dungeons to level up which is why soon it will get harder and harder to get dungeon groups even through duty finder. Right now majority just do dungeons for one time and then move on.
Give people more alternative way to levels and take pressure off fates. And fixing XP in dungeons will go long in helping that.
Dungeons are great as they are. Why would I want to grind dungeons nonstop anyways?
Everything in the game is fun if taken in moderation. Do a few dungeons, do a few fates, craft a bit, main storyline for a while. There's no reason to rush through and just grind 1 thing. If some people do it and find it fun, well good for you I guess, but don't complain about the rest of the game if it doesn't suit the powerleveling scheme. If you level at a decent pace, dungeon loot is perfectly find and does not get outleveled too fast.
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
FATES give you gear too and faster. The grand company gear is on par with dungeon gear. I didn't even bother grinding too much and i ended up with 5000 company seals. So yeah right now FATES are better than dungeons both for xp as well as gear. Now unless someone just wants to run dungeons because he/she enjoys 'dungeons' well that is another point of discussion. But i disagree that dungeons give better xp or gear.
You can only get select pieces of gear from the grand company for each class so, in order completely gear up that way you would have to grind FATES for I dunno a few months to have enough seals to unlock all GC's and level them up to get the gear?
All of these people that have rushed to MAX level and figured the entire game out in 2 weeks amazes me /sarcasm
As for the rest ... maybe do what you like to do most? Thats the beauty with having options, you can pick what you like! I see all these people whining about having to do FATEs ... no you dont. Yah, its the most efficient way to level, so what? If you hate them, there are other ways to level. Good god you people like to needlessly complicate things. I swear youre all like whiny teenage girls sometimes.
Only thing ill agree on is they should drop more gil. These excessive anti-RMT measures theyve put in place are really going to become an economic problem (in game) once the majority of players have quested through their first job. Theyre not even working very well apparently since this game has had the worse gold-seller spam ive seen. Besides ... I doubt gold sellers will be able to bot their way through group content.