This text is a part of Run, Die, Repeat, gamexplore’s week-long collection exploring roguelikes.
I am unable to assist however really feel shocked that Remaining Fantasy XIV is 15 years outdated.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 is likely to be sufficient for a lot of, it’s the Deep Dungeons roguelite mode that retains solo gamers round.
In Remaining Fantasy XIV, Deep Dungeons enriches the solo expertise. Launched throughout Heavensward, the sport’s second growth launched in 2015, Deep Dungeon is a roguelite mode that you would be able to play by your self or with a bunch of gamers. At present, there are three iterations within the sport: 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 kind 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 includes going through enemies, trying to find treasures, and escaping from traps. Nevertheless, in case you die earlier than hitting a selected ground, just like the fiftieth in Palace of the Useless, you have to restart from ground no 1. I ended enjoying Palace of the Useless after attending to the fiftieth ground for the primary time, however different gamers discover all of the enjoyable they will in Deep Dungeons. To grasp extra about it, I talked to Remaining 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 enjoying it since 2018, invited by their roommate to present Sq. Enix’s MMO an opportunity, Aurora instructed me that Deep Dungeons have been the rationale why they stored enjoying the sport.
“I completely would’ve given up on FFXIV if Deep Dungeon did not exist,” they mentioned in an e mail interview. “Whereas there are lots of issues I really like doing on this sport 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 all the sport!” Since then, they’ve challenged themselves in a number of methods.
Soloing any of the three Deep Dungeons just isn’t simple, particularly in case you’re operating a category or job that has decrease injury potential or no maintain in any respect. That’s precisely the type 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, enjoying a Conjurer, a weaker model of White Mage, stands out. However they’re at all times pushing additional. You may watch their seven-hour run on YouTube during which they turn into the primary participant to finish 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 Remaining Fantasy XIV, Aurora shared that they imagine the roguelite can “breathe new life into the sport” since, in comparison with operating 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 choice 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 mentioned.
I have been enjoying Remaining Fantasy XIV since 2013, and it is pure for it and different reside service video games to achieve moments of stagnation because of an absence of latest content material. There are even conditions after updates the place I do not get pleasure from what has been added to the sport, since all the things 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 effectively.
The Deep Dungeon mode faces the identical downside, having the most recent 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 must be extra readily accessible. It has been my greatest downside with the content material for years, and it creates a synthetic barrier of entry that stops lots of people from giving the enjoyable content material an opportunity.”
However, amid what appears an inescapable situation of sameness, Deep Dungeons affords a wanted respite. They’re sandboxes that enable gamers to problem their very own skills, and because of its roguelite design, no run is identical. You might need an ideal begin, discovering all the very best pomades and escaping all traps, or a Mimic could shortly finish your subsequent run because you could not keep away from opening the candy chest subsequent to you. The freshness of a run just isn’t 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 primarily based on different genres, Remaining Fantasy XIV is ready to supply totally different choices for these keen to log in each day. Deep Dungeons is a strong expertise that gamers like Aurora can get pleasure from by utilizing its construction to seek out new methods to have enjoyable, exhibiting how the roguelite style is a supply of novelty that different reside service video games ought to discover.
