Linear, linear, linear

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Elderly people are good for such a use. Oh did I say that...oops.

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Now you know what your life purpose is.Since you will get old,I hope you get the respect you deserve and the bear toys with you for a bit and then mauls you to death .You POS

I'd argue linear vs. nonlinear is merely a choice, one not over the other, and there are strengths and weaknesses to both. But the game needs to be built with that in mind.

From the issues people have with exploration, after removing things that can be chalked up to simple preference, I have seen some criticisms about how the game seems more open than it actually is. Which is an interesting one that I've really only heard about these issues in more modern games.

Perhaps, although linear and nonlinear are both valid choices, presenting as nonlinear is more profitable for a game. I dunno though, just spitballing really.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I don't hate them (zone level designs), just surprised at some of the simplicity or lack of exploration / 'gameplay' wonderment. I say wonderment because sometimes it's a puzzle or some backtrack that makes you go "ah-ha!". I always considered the environment as a non-verbal character of the game, so interacting with it should be a deep conversation- Souls like games have good practice at silent conversations (including environment). I just felt the gameplay elements of the zones in FFXVI didn't really 'silently' talk to me. Visually, including the visual design not just 'graphic quality' of the landscapes talk very well though- I am often pleased with the visual layouts.

Personally I think what bothers me about the open world, and is also just probably a pet-peeve in general which makes it further personal lol, is that there are so many invisible walls. I see a small rock and think I'll hop up on it and the game is like NAH, YOU GO LEFT, OR YOU GO RIGHT, AND IT GOES TO THE SAME SPOT. Me: "how about this cliff". Game: "YOU GO LEFT OR YOU GO RIGHT- YOU GO TO SAME PLACE I TELL YOU, YOU TWIT". Also probably with a preconceived notion on top of that which was they would improve FFXV's open world exploration which did have some stronger movement controls- so I was pre-hoping for smoother environment interactions. The blending from running to hoping over fences is nice, but the jump is uh.. not very useful and you can imagine most of the game as a 2d isometric (in terms of movement, not visuals obviously). Something about being stuck on the ground, essentially, in a 3d world space, really gets to my monkey brain- 404s and dial up noises right away lol.

So I had visual exploration, but I felt I didn't have much tactical exploration. I think this is made a bit worse by the fact that, and you pointed this out I believe, the general rewards for exploring is like 2 gil and some wyrite lol. Doesn't really feel worth it and doesn't really feel like exploring anyways. I do appreciate that chests get their pop-up icon though, otherwise chests would be invisible lol. Next time I hope they can try to add some more interesting rewards, recipes, music rolls, etc. Probably similar to my feeling on quests, most are fairly straight forward (mechanically- tasks/rewards), but when I did the herbal quest that rewards you better potions I was like "now that's cool, worth".

Just finished up a few more hours of play after some MSQ and was like damn, have to wait to do more (till next available time to play).. So that's a pretty good :).

Funny I said I didn't intend to comment much, but it was nice enough to talk to you that I couldn't help have small thoughts while playing XD.

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That's a great writeup - I enjoy discussion. Haha

Yeah the invisible walls everywhere, it kinda seems like they have good world builders, but not great level designers you know? It's usually a really nice area, and then they just throw shit around and block the way, or it's just a 2ft ledge you know you can just hop up. lol

It can be difficult bringing up Souls, because we know they're the masters of world building and especially environment storytelling. I can never really expect anyone to live up to that. But sometimes.. Maybe try a little?

It's very obvious 0-30% progress suffers from similar issues that ARR does. What I don't understand is how they don't realize this can turn a lot of people off, especially when that period is like 20 hours long. It's kinda like XIII in that regard too.

After that, it's starting to kick off for me though, and I'm enjoying my time the more I play.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I don't think anyone's conflating it with some sort of irredeemable problem so much as just an opportunity not taken (it's more just a... salient symptom, so to speak), in the same way that having no customization, or having little combat depth, or little available range in difficulty, or not having a well-crafted learning curve, or not having a responsive and intuitive UI, or having little story coherence, or having little explorable worldstory or backstory, would all be wasted opportunities that could otherwise positively affect a game's apparent quality.

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Yeah it's like having 5 acres of land and you never even do anything with it. It's just kinda there, and it's neat to look at. Maybe in 10 years you'll finally build that brick oven and sitting area you've always wanted, but for now you sit on your couch and watch reruns of Friends. lol

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Remember, SE has engagement metrics that we don't have. If they continue designing and expanding on things like Variant Dungeons, it's because they didn't fumble them, and people by and large are enjoying and playing them.

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No, this isn't as cut and dry.
Variant Dungeons were already announced for 6.4 and 6.5 before the first one was even released, so having more isn't indicative of their success. It was part of their original planning after all, not exactly something you can cancel in the middle of the expac unless this was a complete disaster which made them lose tons of money.
Also, you could very well imagine a scenario where, despite its poor reception, SE could believe that the system still have potential and only need slight changes. After all, you can't judge an entire new gameplay system with only just one sample (maybe the reception could be better with different rewards, or different lore, or different bosses, etc.)
And lastly, I don't believe it's applicable here, but some features could stay despite their relative unpopularity because they require basically no cost to maintain (like unreal trials).
So no, more variant/criterion this expac doesn't necessarily mean it was well received.
We'll see when they announce the 7.0 features.

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Originally Posted by Kazhar

No, this isn't as cut and dry.
Variant Dungeons were already announced for 6.4 and 6.5 before the first one was even released, so having more isn't indicative of their success. It was part of their original planning after all, not exactly something you can cancel in the middle of the expac unless this was a complete disaster which made them lose tons of money.
Also, you could very well imagine a scenario where, despite its poor reception, SE could believe that the system still have potential and only need slight changes. After all, you can't judge an entire new gameplay system with only just one sample (maybe the reception could be better with different rewards, or different lore, or different bosses, etc.)
And lastly, I don't believe it's applicable here, but some features could stay despite their relative unpopularity because they require basically no cost to maintain (like unreal trials).
So no, more variant/criterion this expac doesn't necessarily mean it was well received.
We'll see when they announce the 7.0 features.

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I'm curious if you realize the contradictions within that post. You're simultaneously claiming that they would continue making them regardless of how they were received, but also acknowledging they could cancel them even mid-expansion if they really didn't work...which necessarily implies that they're doing fine since they're continuing with the plan to make more of them...

They're better received than HW Diadem was. Maybe Diadem was also a case of the team still being smaller and more responsive, given they had a shorter production schedule, or the feedback was more keenly heard because written letters and live letters were more common and YoshiP wasn't producing another major game at the time, but they also didn't wholesale trash Diadem even though players almost entirely disliked it.

Players asked for more interesting small group content for a long time, and that's why they even tried variant dungeons. Even if they weren't as venerable as deep dungeons or exploratory zones, those things weren't in their first outings, either. They did say they planned to release multiple variant dungeons this expansion, and they're usually good about keeping their promises barring pandemics or industry-wide sales milestones. I think it's reasonable to expect they'll be more given their plan and that most players enjoyed them for at least a little while, and if it didn't meet their goals, I expect they'll try things slightly differently and improve it.

I would be satisfied even if they if just came away from variants discovering some way to breathe life into all dungeons. The miniboss doing different stuff on different versions is awesome imo and keeps things fresher longer on repeats.

I'm sure the poster realizes the contradictions because we're not talking about some kind of rigid ruleset, we're talking about a team of human developers with priorities, schedules and even families. Having a plan is a good plan, but plans aren't written in stone.

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Originally Posted by Ghost_of_Ebina

It seems the overall direction to make sure every "required" dungeon needs to be possible to beat with NPC parties, they had to dumb-down everything.
However, even then it seems even the non-required dungeons are largely linear these days.

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It started long before squads and trusts. Way back in ARR, Snowcloak and Keeper of the Lake were very linear. Probably some earlier, too, but I have a headache.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

I'm curious if you realize the contradictions within that post. You're simultaneously claiming that they would continue making them regardless of how they were received, but also acknowledging they could cancel them even mid-expansion if they really didn't work...which necessarily implies that they're doing fine since they're continuing with the plan to make more of them...

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huh... is this an attempt at a gotcha?
I just acknowledged that they could possibly cancel content if it's a big disaster. There's a huge scale between "massive success the silent majority loves it" and "so bad it needs to be cancelled or Square Enix will lose money". Just clearing that later condition doesn't make a content successful.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

It started long before squads and trusts. Way back in ARR, Snowcloak and Keeper of the Lake were very linear. Probably some earlier, too, but I have a headache.

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While the linear dungeon design started relatively early it is undeniable that the introduction of Trusts and Duty support has made it even worse. We just need to look at the old dungeon redesigns that suck even the last shred of variety out of them so the bots can complete it.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

While the linear dungeon design started relatively early it is undeniable that the introduction of Trusts and Duty support has made it even worse. We just need to look at the old dungeon redesigns that suck even the last shred of variety out of them so the bots can complete it.

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Honestly, I've found a lot of them to be improvements anyway. Does anyone actually miss waiting forever for the first two bosses in Copperbell to actually do anything?