Critque and hope for the future of Dungeon Design.

After all this years, maybe the simple concept of dungeon has become obsolete, that being said wildstar had an interesting idea : While you do a dungeon you'll be given mutltiple critical choices that result in different encounter and different area to go through (most of the time 3 choices).

The choices were done through votes of the party members. (could be randomized in FF14 if the votes are equal)

But yeah overall dungeon concept is in dire need of renewal.

Those aren't bad suggestions, but dungeons are the way they are right now because of the players. Players shunned the more intricate or complicated dungeons. Speedrunning has killed the ability for the devs to be creative in the general dungeons.

I'm hoping Criterion Dungeons incorporate some new ideas. It's a lot easier to have something like non-combat mechanics if it's solo or small group and there aren't people in the party going "go go go go go"

We have to remember that dungeons need to work for trusts now, but the new criterion dungeons will probably not be part of the MSQ so trusts shouldn't get in the way of their design.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

We have to remember that dungeons need to work for trusts now, but the new criterion dungeons will probably not be part of the MSQ so trusts shouldn't get in the way of their design.

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MSQ need to but optional don't. But players shunned the optional dungeons that they couldn't speedrun through. People complain about the crystal mechanic in a place like Dzemael because it slows the run down, but that's exactly the sort of creativity and thinking outside the box that the OP wants to see.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

MSQ need to but optional don't.

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Optional dungeons are not produced very often anymore. Hard Mode dungeons were effectively discontinued with the decision to only produce 1 dungeon per patch. We get 2 optional dungeons at an expansion release and we had examples of all the dungeons in a patch being optional in Stormblood, but this is very rare now and hasn't happened since trusts came out.

that has to do with bland job design and unrewarding dungeon spelunking you almost had no reason to actually explore those open areas or side paths/zones

GW2 has a great dungeon system allowing you to choose seperate routes in each dungeon so you can at least mix it up a little each time you go in. plus it can have random bonus events pop up while you're going about which also adds to making each run more unique. in terms of job design it feels good being able to use group invis and sneak by an entire huge pack of enemies. or being able to use your terrain to your advantage to avuse line of sight or funnel enemies something which our jobs and combat just aren't capable of doing in it's current state

there are plenty of ways to make dungeons rewarding or even easier on teh final boss here's an example i brought up in anohter post (it was thought up in like minutes so it's not extrmely well thought out be aware)

now imagine if you will we take a page from binding coil of bahamut and make a dungeon (i'm thinking kinda like we go back to garlemald and there's an abomination in their towers/castle jail area and so we go and clear it out) with 6 mini bosses and then the final boss split the mini bosses into 3 groups of two (human bosses, mechanical creatures/systems, and abominations) now for those who want to speedrun they will have a straight shot to the boss all they gotta do is turn around and hit a switch to unlock a path straight to the boss but they will have a far harder time than those who choose to deal with the mini bosses

now let's say for example if you choose path 1 the humanoid path by defeating the first mini boss you prevent your ranged DPS from having to kill the reinforcements the boss abomintion summons on walkways above the arena that will cast healing spells on the boss. the second mini boss prevents the summoning of suicide bombers to the arena that will move even while they're about to explode (not liek the necro bombers who stop before they explode.

if you choose path 2 the mechanical path by defeating the first mini boss you stop the anti intruder system from releasing poison gas into the area at random points, if you kill the next boss you stop the machine from unleashing the flame turrets on your party. (now the flame turrets will have to be destroyed once summoned unlike the poison dispenser)

if you take path 3 the abomination path killing the first boss stops the main abomination from absorbing it halfway through the fight augmenting it's skills to a harder variant. killing the second boss in this path would prevent the main abomination from calling upon it at random points to drop jail cages that if you get caught under immobilize you and your party has to break you out similar to titan.

now after every mini boss you can reach a jail cell that has a "secret tunnel" back to the starting zone so if you wanted to you could kill all 6 mini bosses before the main boss or for example only kill the first boss of each path go back hit the switch and go straight to boss.

yes people will speedrun or find the optimal bosses to kill but thats not the point if they choose to straight speedrun they are still challenged by an extremely hectic and difficult boss fight if they find the optimal bosses to kill they still ahve to interact with the dungeon to do it altogether there's alot of combinations you could try to make the boss as easy or hard as you want.