One of my favorite part of FFXIV is the dungeons. The casual social romp through a dungeon that breadcrumbs you through a linear path but also allows you to take some side routes for some extra treasure is one of the easiest to grind dungeon systems out there next to WoW: Wrath of the Lich King where you could just pile enemies up in giant clumps and AoE them all day. It also tells us how important dungeons are to an MMO and a little bit about why I think Skyforge is going to be a knock-out hit once it builds some momentum and people see the wonderful gameplay. 

In FFXIV dungeons are very casual and are heavily played because once you consume the first round of content, leveling other jobs up becomes a task because you've consumed the quests. It's easier to level, obviously, as you have a plethora of skill choices to take with you on your low level jobs and plenty of cash, but it's also harder since you have to grind FATEs and dungeons more so than quests. 

The drawback here is that dungeons almost always insta-queue, especially for tanks and healers. They're only four players, making each player a bit more accountable than the standard five, but also a bit easier to manage since with only four players there is less of a chance of a Leroy Jenkins popping out. The only hard part is if you're playing console, it can be a bit tricky to tank properly, but again the dungeons are very friendly. They don't punish but they aren't easy as well. 

The reason I believe dungeons are so critical to a game's success is that it is content that can be repeated over and over. Without a good dungeon system, MMOs can't be successful. There are exceptions, but every successful MMO that I know of has a compelling dungeon system. SWTOR flashpoints, WoW's dungeons, and heck even DDO is literally nothing but a dungeon game with a few open world Guild Wars-esq maps. The original Guild Wars was literally nothing but dungeons, technically, as each map played out like any modern day dungeon would. GW2 is all about that dungeon grind, when players aren't PvPing. 

So, yeah, I think that dungeons are becoming sort of a lost focus, and games suffer a little bit for it. You need that content in the game, something to grind at for some kind of reward, as an incentive to play, because you can only consume so much content at a time. Games like Warframe procedually generate dungeons by stitching together tilesets, for instance, while games like Phantasy Star Online 2 are long hallmark titles of "grind dungeons all day." 

Skyforge is mostly dungeons, a mix of associated maps and dungeons, and the dungeons can be solo'able (big win). Skyforge is, to me, like Phantasy Star Online was, a game where you grind and grind and grind and love it. 

I love my grind, when it's packaged in a way that makes me giggly. How about you? What do you like in your dungeons?


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Last Updated: Mar 15, 2016

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Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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