This text is a part of Run, Die, Repeat, Polygon’s week-long collection exploring roguelikes.
I am unable to assist however really feel shocked that Last Fantasy XIV is 15 years outdated. As an MMORPG, the sport faces an uphill problem of entertaining a wide range of gamers, and whereas the common cadence of patches could be sufficient for a lot of, it’s the Deep Dungeons roguelite mode that retains solo gamers round.
In Last Fantasy XIV, Deep Dungeons enriches the solo expertise. Launched throughout Heavensward, the sport’s second enlargement launched in 2015, Deep Dungeon is a roguelite mode which you can play by your self or with a bunch of gamers. Presently, there are three iterations within the recreation: The Palace of the Useless, Heaven-on-Excessive, and Eureka Orthos. The gear and degree of your character does not matter on this mode. Each character begins at degree 1, with a sort of apparatus solely used inside Deep Dungeons, and must climb the flooring to degree up and enhance their gear.
Regardless of every model having its distinctive traits, all Deep Dungeons observe the identical construction. They provide a sequence of flooring to be climbed —- Palace of the Useless being the one one with 200 flooring, whereas the others have 100 —- and doing so entails going through enemies, looking for treasures, and escaping from traps. Nevertheless, in the event you die earlier than hitting a particular ground, just like the fiftieth in Palace of the Useless, you want to restart from ground no 1. I ended taking part in Palace of the Useless after attending to the fiftieth ground for the primary time, however different gamers discover all of the enjoyable they’ll in Deep Dungeons. To know extra about it, I talked to Last Fantasy XIV content material creator AuroraMoonx, who has mastered multiple of those.
As an alternative of specializing in beating the brand new final raid or staying in Limsa Lominsa dancing, Aurora has enjoyable by delving into solo Deep Dungeons. Having been taking part in it since 2018, invited by their roommate to present Sq. Enix’s MMO an opportunity, Aurora informed me that Deep Dungeons have been the rationale why they stored taking part in the sport.
“I completely would’ve given up on FFXIV if Deep Dungeon did not exist,” they stated in an e mail interview. “Whereas there are a lot of issues I really like doing on this recreation within the present day—like fishing—I by no means would’ve found them if it wasn’t for Deep Dungeon. It was my gateway to the whole recreation!” Since then, they’ve challenged themselves in a number of methods.
Soloing any of the three Deep Dungeons shouldn’t be simple, particularly in the event you’re working a category or job that has decrease injury potential or no maintain in any respect. That’s precisely the form of problem Aurora goes after. Among the many most troublesome runs they confronted, their world-first away from Heaven-on-Excessive, the Stormblood‘s Deep Dungeon, taking part in a Conjurer, a weaker model of White Mage, stands out. However they’re all the time pushing additional. You’ll be able to watch their seven-hour run on YouTube by which they turn out to be the primary participant to full the 200 flooring in Palace of the Useless as an Astrologian throughout Endwalker.
After I requested them about how Deep Dungeons impacted the lifetime of Last Fantasy XIV, Aurora shared that they consider the roguelite can “breathe new life into the sport” since, in comparison with working dungeons, trials, and regular raids, the mode is extra dynamic. “In an MMO centered round sample recognition, and formulaic static rotations and fights, Deep Dungeon solo requires on the fly determination making with no two runs being the identical. It breaks the mildew and requires a completely new talent set which is enjoyable and recent,” they stated.
I have been taking part in Last Fantasy XIV since 2013, and it is pure for it and different stay service video games to achieve moments of stagnation as a consequence of an absence of recent content material. There are even conditions after updates the place I do not get pleasure from what has been added to the sport, since every little thing feels the identical. Dungeons have adopted the two-rooms-one-boss design since A Realm Reborn, and the talent rotation of most bosses, though they’ve some private taste, tends to repeat the identical sample as properly.
The Deep Dungeon mode faces the identical downside, having the latest variations repeat the core design of 2016’s Palace of the Useless. As Aurora shared with me, they’re in want of some quality-of-life updates: “I have been complaining for a very long time that Sustaining Potions have to be extra readily accessible. It has been my largest downside with the content material for years, and it creates a synthetic barrier of entry that forestalls lots of people from giving the enjoyable content material an opportunity.”
However, amid what appears an inescapable situation of sameness, Deep Dungeons presents a wanted respite. They’re sandboxes that enable gamers to problem their very own talents, and because of its roguelite design, no run is similar. You may need an ideal begin, discovering all the very best pomades and escaping all traps, or a Mimic might shortly finish your subsequent run because you could not keep away from opening the candy chest subsequent to you. The freshness of a run shouldn’t be seasonal. It is inherent to this mode, a characteristic that compels some gamers to discover the depths of those dungeons.
By adapting and inserting modes based mostly on different genres, Last Fantasy XIV is ready to provide totally different choices for these prepared to log in each day. Deep Dungeons is a stable expertise that gamers like Aurora can get pleasure from by utilizing its construction to search out new methods to have enjoyable, displaying how the roguelite style is a supply of novelty that different stay service video games ought to discover.
