Deep Dungeon - Palace of the DeadFollow

Would have liked some fun objectives like Nyzul had instead of just clear mobs > next floor > repeat

It's alright. It's good that it can be used to level up jobs, at least.

Edited, Jul 19th 2016 11:53am by BrokenFox

First round I did 1-50 with a set 4, now trying 1-50 doing "matched party". Haven't tried solo yet but I think I might for my alt to see how it is. The way mobs work inside are kind of weird...like, they do scale up eventually but if you get "Pox" status effect you're as good as dead unless you have purity pomas lol.

They just made it a bit too RNG in the sense you need to get your weapon and armor to +30 to use the ilvl235 weapon, but the silver chest will or will not upgrade it, so it's essentially an extension of Aquapolis.

Yeah basically duty finder.

Ended up getting 292k or so exp, I have to look back on my videos to really see. So it's actually a fair bit of exp you can get. Main reward though is the 3 tomes you get (Poetic/Eso/Lore) so if anything, you can do it for some quick tomes lol.

In terms of difficulty they already said the first what was it 100 floors? would be easy, but that getting to 200 is something not everyone will be able to do because it will be hard. It would have been cool to have more floors already from the start imo, but I guess it is a good thing that they only added 50 in the sense that now they can take the feedback they get from it and hopefully adjust the coming floors somewhat. I agree specifically with different objectives other than "kill the mobs" being a good start.

One thing I am wondering about. In FFXI for the most part content was made for groups, but if you were good enough you could do it in smaller groups or even solo. The good thing about that was that you got more of a challenge and often a different way of playing it, but it was also a good way to earn more rewards. If something dropped it was yours, not something you had to split etc. Now it might be slower, but when it came to content you can only do once a week or NMs that are rare etc doing something more slowly wasn't really an issue. I am wondering, what is the point of soloing deepest dungeon? I see a lot of people talking about it, but so far I don't see the point other than it being more difficult and no real point in doing it. I don't know how the system works as I have not tried it yet so I could be entirely wrong though.

Edited, Jul 20th 2016 4:03am by Belcrono

There's a cap on the lower floors so you can't just spam floors 1-10 to get your weapon/armor up to 30.

Yep, they blocked it mainly so you don't choose 41-50 and spam for the Shards which thus inflates the Materia Tier V market (sicne minion and mount isn't sellable) and you tend to get the best Silver Chest upgrades on 31-50.

So at the risk of "being called out" or whatever, no matter how much **** I get for saying XI is better in terms of design, it really is. Look at Nyzul Isle, if you have completed Data you can choose whatever floor and even drag people in with you, THEY just won't get clear credit if it's above their current data save. Why not..copy that idea?

I'm not sure if its LESS likely as such as it is you can't actually get gear upgrades if it's sync'd. For example on my 2nd set to 30 I was syncd on floor 1-10 and popped 12 silver chests (drops from monsters too) and not a single upgrade, BUT everyone in that run actually capped off for the next set of floors as Silver Chests can "HQ" and you gain 3-4 levels from 1.

So the system itself, as always, has great potential, but it seems like they purposefully...ruin it in some way to kill the desire to actually want to invest it. Just let me choose the range that ACTUALLY benefits me, yes it will lessen the player pool because no one will want to keep resetting data and redoing floor 1-10 or 1-30 if they don't have to but 31-50 is the only way to reliably get beyond 21 on the gear/weapon.

Did this with a few FC mates last night. Cleared floor 20, and we're going back in tonight to continue our progress.

Gotta say, I don't see the hate. The early floors were easy but progress is clearly getting more difficult, and I understand there's a penalty for death which makes being cautious of traps worthwhile (a trap + wrongly timed hit could lead to death, even on a sub-20 floor). I like the chest layouts and the ongoing decision of whether to move on or explore. And I really like how the floors are random.

I looked forward to this being content that would easily bring people together (something that raid content largely fails to do), and to that end, this seems successful. Again, two of the people in my FC group last night aren't in my weekly raid static, so I'd otherwise not do much with them -- and already, we've adventured together. I like the option to try it solo or just go in with one or two other people for an added challenge.

This feels entirely different than leveling dungeons, which are honestly just as scripted as endgame raids.

Excited to see how SE builds on this. If the difficulty progresses according to how it has been, then I think everyone should be happy with floors 100 to 200. In the meantime, this content was never intended to be a part of XIV's endgame, and it's good at being what it is -- solid casual content with a few worthwhile rewards (and the ability level up jobs or farm tomes) while breaking away from the norm.

Room for improvement? Always and with everything.

EDIT: I also don't understand the love affair with Nyzul Isle... and I'm not talking about on here as much as I am the official forums. I agree with Hyrist on Nyzul, too... it was a slog in XI with just a handful of "objectives" that really only helped to gate out new people and encourage people to form statics... and XIV already has enough content like that.

But as BrokenFox says below, there is plenty of room here for this content to be fleshed out -- which is why I'm calling it a success. Unlike the first go-round of Diadem, SE has implemented a worthwhile content system that many players are already enjoying. Diadem was populated for a few weeks not because it was in any way fun, but because it was an irresistible loot pinata. Deep Dungeon is being played for many reasons -- for farming tomes, for leveling, for mounts, for weapons -- and it's already way more engaging than Diadem ever was.

Tons of great infrastructure here for SE to build on not only in the short term, but across expansions for years to come.

Edited, Jul 20th 2016 9:40am by Thayos

I remember not too long someone said exactly this and proceeded to get torn apart simply because it wasn't content that person personally liked ..

The problem is, if you're late in your weapon progression, it's virtually no chance at all unless it's a 0.x% or 1% chance (I and many others keeping data have yet to see a level up once your weapon and armor are 27+ on floor 1-30), it's not simply reduced. It's not that it's hard, there's literally no benefit to redoing it once you're nearing the end of your weapon because the exp bonus for leveling a new job isn't that great as of yet so once your tomes are capped off, you're basically going to start running into:

"Quick Run"

People that will make things aggravating because they want to get back to the set of floors that will actually progress them. So using it as an alternative to regular leveling dungeons, go for it, but majority of people are going to use "Matched Party" for at least 1 slot (don't even try solo, you're not getting anywhere over floor 20 unless you have ungodly luck.)



As said, once you complete your first run and your weapon/armor no longer levels until the last 2 set of floors or even complete your first weapon, you'll understand better where a lot of people are coming from. It's not even just me, a lot of people said that's their main problem with the system, so no one really "hates" it, it's just a VERY common sense quality of life function that almost every other MMO has because when you're grinding the same set of floors 5+ times to no benefit, that gets repitious far quicker than an ex primals, because sooner or later your tomes will cap out so you're literally only doing it for 1-2k+ until the final 20 floors. At least with ex primals you're gaining weapons for desynth, synthesis materials or mounts lol. Heck even Shards are abysmal drop rates outside of the final boss so can't even really grind it for that.



Funnily enough, it's quite the opposite. Unless they change how they handle data, people are actually worried about floors 100+ because you'll have to start from 1 again to progress upwards to 100 so if you happen to wipe on 99..guess what no one will want to do? Especially if they are actually challenging...it would hit people harder than A6S where you have to start the entire raid over if you mess up 1 mechanic and cause a wipe. The system is fine for what it is, that's just a very glaring problem. If there were more to floor 1-30 it wouldn't be too bad, but as more and more people start hitting that point it'll start showing up a lot more on community forums.

Heck the VERY FIRST complaint about it was how you could literally end 1-10 and not be able to do floor 11 because you didn't get enough silver chests and have to redo it again - No matter how you slice it, that is a problem that can and will turn people off. I'm not even saying that's a bad thing, but it's just those little things they should have looked at because I know a lot of people who wiped on floor 39 no want to even try the content again when they realized they have to start from 1 each time they clear 50. Having floor selection is perfectly fine, because every other content that is "tiered" lets you select, i.e Alexander, Coil (as of now) and Primals. I don't care about how easy it is, it just feels like something is really off with the "end-game" of it, since grinding isn't even the problem, it would be cool if regrinding 1-30 actually offered something you know?

Yeah. I tried some solo on DRG last night. 1-10 was pretty easy. 11-19 was harder, though still doable. The floor 20 boss absolutely destroyed me though.

Yeah as said I like the system, it just really seems the "end-game" of it needs to change especially once we're 200 floors deep and it potentially has the setup/purpose (an alternate weapon/armor) it's just going to be so, so, so, SO very hard to want to push through it if you wipe on 199 and have to go back from 1 lol.

You do indeed get tomes and gil, which is why I said once you've capped those out (takes into consideration if you have access to eso/lore as well) you're basically just doing it to get back to the higher floors as possible.

And main reason I say Nyzul is better, is largely because it was designed with the foresight that people will be grinding earlier floors again for various reasons (i.e armor drops) and they could have switched up the floors to at least have puzzles or something. Even in XI while some of the "puzzles" in dungeons were as basic as it gets...it at least had that element there. Especially given the lore and the place it is you'd assume there'd be at least some puzzle/trap floors you have to navigate through rather than a slaughter fest lol.

Edited, Jul 20th 2016 11:42am by Theonehio

I don't think wiping reset all your progress. IIRC, after my aforementioned solo loss on floor 20 I was still saved to floor 11. I'd have to do 11-20 again, but not restart all the way from 1.

Yeah, that's the biggest issue since going back the first set of floors for no upgrade (or low to the point you're better off hoping Tier V materia drops from trash mobs as you'd sooner see that than your 20+ set upgrading) will eventually shift that set of content in a direction a lot of people usually hate (Quick Runs) because as said, something "for newbies" will eventually become not as newbie friendly fairly quickly (already on my 2nd weapon, so I know if there's a certain group of people pushing through it you'll start seeing them shortly as you can only queue up to 4, so that kind of makes it perfect DF fodder.)

The drop rate on Potsherds is so absurdly low though people didn't know they existed outside of floor 50 which is why you had people saying you have to clear floor 50 at minimum 15 times (if you didn't check database sites) so once we got a few out of brown chests in the so lovingly dubbed Owlmino sexy time house on floor 25, it was surprising. That too brings up the fact they knew through testing that players wouldn't get anything for going back to earlier floors while getting back to the final 20 that will actually upgrade you, so they could have at least adjusted bonuses or added special flags when 2 or more people with level 20+ weapon/armor enters there's a higher chance to get shards or something. The system for that is already in place, as 1 or more people who completed high tier raids removes loot, so the reverse is more than possible.

As for your speculation, it depends if they actually put that care into the system, because it sadly feels like something that will drop off until 3.5 when they need to throw in another quick catch up ilvl piece of gear for people who don't want to fight the primal or raid of that patch. The main thing to take into consideration is they introduced an ilvl 235 weapon in the same cycle that already has an easy to obtain ilvl235 weapon, yet as I've said months ago and thus predicted this, when they introduce something of the same or better ilvl with better stats, that's where people will flood to regardless of content quality, and that's usually when things tend to take a direction change, look how bad Diadem got when BiS 210 pieces were discovered from coming out of it.

So realistically, that's exactly the change I was talking about and why it should have worked closer to Nyzul. I've already cleared 50, I should be able to choose a set of my liking, when you add 150 more floors, no one is going to scale from 1-200 each time because it's VERY unlikely they'll guarantee any actual rewards for doing so because that's just not how yoshi rolls, at least not without weekly investments of at minimum 4-7 weeks, but as said (even by SE), PoTD is kinda really bugged currently (nothing to the point it doesn't function) so who knows, maybe there's actually stuff not even working that we've yet to see.

And while I'm almost 100% positive it's just a design decision, but bosses dropping nothing..is just so weird to me in content you progress.

Edited, Jul 20th 2016 6:40pm by Theonehio

This is FFXI not XI did you actually expect SE to put any thought behind their new content? (just look at anima weapon quests), I gave up on this game having any real depth a long time ago