FFXIV dungeons are a little bit too linear?

Objectives wouldn't really work in DF content, as we all know people will prefer to quickest route. If objectives required you to make a pre-made party, then sure.

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Originally Posted by Magis

... this was more an openworld dungeon which doesn't compare well to instanced ones.

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Very good point sir.

From that, I also strongly think that Dungeons as part of the open world makes it possible for non-linear design and everything associated with exploration & its risks.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

Anyone else remember Blackfathom Depths from back in WoW?

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The problem was never the developers, its the playerbase expectations.
Blackrock Depths was my favorite dungeon in WoW, remains that way to this day despite the joke its become with all the class and mechanic changes. Still, a huge labyrinth with dozens of bosses will not be well received by the community, even if that was my favorite pastime.

The reason is that people don't want to do anything that is time consuming. You need only look at the previous dungeon releases to see what i mean. Why was Haukke HM and Brayflox HM the most popular of their respective patch cycles?
Totorak is an unpopular dungeon on the leveling path because it takes a while to get through it.
Sacrifice runs in AV too.

The answer is simple. Maximum reward for minimum effort. It would need to have the best gear ever drop within it or no one would do it. Blame the players, not the devs. Can't blame them when they know for a fact that no one would do it even if they made the content.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

snip.

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Look no further than Pharos Sirius where it was a harder dungeon with the same reward that easier dungeons gave.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

The problem was never the developers, its the playerbase expectations.
Blackrock Depths was my favorite dungeon in WoW, remains that way to this day despite the joke its become with all the class and mechanic changes. Still, a huge labyrinth with dozens of bosses will not be well received by the community, even if that was my favorite pastime.

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Ah BRD. I remember fondly there was a time when I, with a random pug that I joined really by accident spent 4-6 hours going from the very top to the very bottom.

Good times. Great times.

That said, yeah I can understand the desire for awesome labyrinth style dungeons, but yeah. Does not work out well anymore. I personally cannot stand Toto-Rak, not because of all the alternative routes but because it feels longer than it actually is and every place looks the same. Felt like I was on Namek.

A couple of things that would go a long way to fixing the situation with dungeons;

People say "oh, SE can build multiple routes, but nobody will run them once the most efficient path is worked out."
Fine, don't give them the choice. You can have 3 routes through each zone which is randomly determined at the start. In turn, this can lead to alternative bosses.

Also, randomise enemies. I don't mean pull them from everywhere, but make each enemy area be able to pull from a predetermined set of enemies thematically appropriate for the dungeon. Might make you have to change your play style on the fly - maybe there' are more AoEs to deal with? Maybe this will have consequences with environmental hazzards like in Dzemeal Darkhold? Maybe there are more DOTs to remove?

None of this really gets close to open world, freedom of choice dungeons, and I accept that. But it does at least allow the content to live a little bit longer.

after i have seen tanks in diadem... we NEED those linear dungeons, otherwise the tanks will be helpless. they have no idea what to pull and everyone try to sneak through the monsters and in the end we have a mass pull wich the tank can't handle while 2-3 monsters killing random people because the tank didn't have seen them... o.o/

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Originally Posted by Mieck

People say "oh, SE can build multiple routes, but nobody will run them once the most efficient path is worked out."
Fine, don't give them the choice. You can have 3 routes through each zone which is randomly determined at the start. In turn, this can lead to alternative bosses.

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Just so we're clear, you're talking about making a single dungeon that has 3 separate routes that are randomly generated and could lead to different bosses?

Why not just make 3 different dungeons then?


As much as it sucks, the best way to probably keep dungeons relevant for longer periods of time would be a Badge of Justice method, with Badge of Justice acquisition levels.

And for those of you that don't know, in the Burning Crusade a full completion of a heroic dungeon would reward at most was 5 Badges. Items themselves cost at most 100 badges. Which meant you were running dungeons, a lot.

Now this badge system is pure garbage for many obvious reasons, but by keeping the amount of Badges the player got very very low, but had the cost of the items very high you pretty much kept the dungeons relevant through out the entire expansion, because damnit you needed to get those badges if you weren't at the end game raids.

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

Just so we're clear, you're talking about making a single dungeon that has 3 separate routes that are randomly generated and could lead to different bosses?

Why not just make 3 different dungeons then?

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Because it just goes back to the original complaint; that dungeons are too linear. I proposed an alternative, and you said why not just do the thing the OP was complaining about. Not sure I get that...

Anyway, I'm not saying the routes are randomly generated - they will already exist. I am saying the route will be randomly determined.

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Originally Posted by Mieck

Because it just goes back to the original complaint; that dungeons are too linear. I proposed an alternative, and you said why not just do the thing the OP was complaining about. Not sure I get that...

Anyway, I'm not saying the routes are randomly generated - they will already exist. I am saying the route will be randomly determined.

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But they would still be linear if the route is randomly determined, just now instead of having the choice of going left or right, the game decided I am going right this run and damned if I wanted to go left.

I just fail to see the difference between the two.

Diadem was probably an experiment to test out the viability of a non-linear instance and look how that turned out.

XI had some famously complex multi-map open world dungeons. They were a PAIN IN THE BUTT to work with because just to get past certain areas you needed 2-3 more bodies. Garliage Citadel's gates were infamous. Oh, you got the key for your treasure coffer and you need to go camp it solo? Too bad, you need 3 more bodies just to get you behind the gates.

Unfortunately, XIV made the distinction early on that a "dungeon" would be a short instance only specific duty with 3 other players. The beastman areas would have been considered dungeons in XI, but they're open world in XIV, and they're the closest we'll get to an XI style dungeon.

I too would like to see more complex dungeons, but I want them to be something I can explore on my own terms.

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

Now this badge system is pure garbage for many obvious reasons, but by keeping the amount of Badges the player got very very low, but had the cost of the items very high you pretty much kept the dungeons relevant through out the entire expansion, because damnit you needed to get those badges if you weren't at the end game raids.

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They stayed relevant not just because you needed Badges of Justice no matter what tier you were at in Raiding, you also couldn't do any Heroic more than once in a day.
They also stayed relevant due to sheer difficulty. Heroic Shadow Labyrinth was incredibly difficult to get through if your CCers weren't on the ball with every pull, even in raid gear.
It helped that the drops themselves were almost a requirement for getting started in Raiding, not to mention the Attunement quests.

But by far, what kept every heroic relevant was the daily lockout. If you wanted to cap your daily Badges, you were required to do each one once instead of *just* the fastest one. Which is why places like Shadow Labs and Shattered Halls were run regularly every day, despite being both long and difficult. But lets not forget that people were perfectly willing to do Heroic Magisters Terrace, despite being among the hardest of Heroics.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

I too would like to see more complex dungeons, but I want them to be something I can explore on my own terms.

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I would love to see some explorable dungeons that we can do solo but that could also scale up with more players, kind of like Hunts and FATEs.
Hell, Just give us an Exploration Mode on existing Dungeons, make it an Instance through the DF but requiring you physically going to the entrance, really open up the interiors, make the mobs within like the Diadem mobs with scaling difficulties and rewards, hidden treasure chests etc ...

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Originally Posted by CrimsonThunder

Diadem was probably an experiment to test out the viability of a non-linear instance and look how that turned out.

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i have to agree.

but on the other hand you can't compare the diadem... it's not just beacuse it's non linear. the bigger problem is you can fly. wich means you can skip 95% of the "dungeon". and there are too many people inside, wich leads to this hunt zerg... diadem would be much better without flying and with less people o.o/

I mentioned that like half year ago. Did not bring much attention.

Dungeons in FFXIV are just hallway from point A to point B. There are no real structures to explore, even you visit some of them, you can not explore them. Its illusion/scenery. What you get is always only 1 way and you cannot even visit some extra rooms because 90% is gated behind invisible walls/obstacles.

Yep good dungeons was already mentioned here. From vanilla wow BRD, Sunken Temple(Hakkar), maraudon.

I want some multilayared, fully structured dungeons, with quests inside, traps, optional bosses, optional mechanics, without invisible walls( in BRD for example there was no problem to fall into lava etc. )
Some patrols would be also nice to give more life into them.

I dont understand point of new dungeons in FFXIV with current desingn, there are all same, just with different scenery, we basicaly have 30 same dungeons in game.

Even the few 1.0 dungeons weren't so linear.

Complex dungeons would work more as an open-world type of dungeon, imo. Especially since dungeons have time limits, and usually I don't want to spend so much time with random DF groups. I have to agree with the others that the impatient people would just find a faster way to do it though, afterwards it becomes a guide, making everything else trivial.

But if I ever get bad DF groups when the dungeons are so complex though, I might just pull my hair off.

I would love to have a complex dungeons that aren't linear and boring. I feel like those dungeons require more than just 4 people though.

However when the devs want you to farm a boss drop 60 times those paths WILL become linear cause we look for the fastest route.

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Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum

I would love to have a complex dungeons that aren't linear and boring. I feel like those dungeons require more than just 4 people though.

However when the devs want you to farm a boss drop 60 times those paths WILL become linear cause we look for the fastest route.

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They could just force you to take all the routes, just have it as a more "open" dungeon. Want to kill the last boss first? Go right ahead, then the 1st, and then finally the 2nd. It would change things up slightly at the very least. Hell, make them 8 man with more than 3 bosses, even if some bosses are race models with custom armour rescaled to look bigger (aka the Vault) so they don't take as much resources. Anything is better than what we have now.

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Originally Posted by CrimsonThunder

Diadem was probably an experiment to test out the viability of a non-linear instance and look how that turned out.

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Lol, well thats a horrible way to do it. You have 72 people in an instance not working for one goal and includes gathering classes. No, its most certainly not a test for non-linear instances. -_-

The same people who don't want dungeons with multiple ways to finish because it would "take too many time" are the ones who say healers who don't like to DPS are lazy. Guess who's lazy?

I agree! Some complexity or a maze like style would be quite interesting.

The big problem is non-linear dungeons do not work well in a random match making system. When you throw 4 random people together and have choices then you will have issues where player A wants to clear the whole place but player B only wants to kill the end boss and get out. I saw this a lot in WoW with the few dungeons that had optional bosses. If that optional boss did not drop something the tank wanted good luck getting them to go that way for your potential drop, etc.

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Originally Posted by Vasala

The big problem is non-linear dungeons do not work well in a random match making system. When you throw 4 random people together and have choices then you will have issues where player A wants to clear the whole place but player B only wants to kill the end boss and get out. I saw this a lot in WoW with the few dungeons that had optional bosses. If that optional boss did not drop something the tank wanted good luck getting them to go that way for your potential drop, etc.

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Ever considered the fact that this isn't WoW and actually thought of something innovative like having the boss pop in a few random sections of the dungeon that players would have to explore different sections to find it? Or like Sastasha with its little note which will hint at a mechanism that could branch you into a different path or perhaps an npc giving you a task in the dungeon leading to an area with mechanisms or items that would weaken the boss giving you more options in completing the dungeon?

Actually how about not everyones an a@#hole that says "quick run now or I'm leaving, huh durr" because if they did I'd reply, "peace the f&%# out." and wait for someone else to join. Less linear dungeons would be a big step to more immersive content, and this "WoW yada yada, everythings a speedrun, players are jerks" crap needs to stop because NO DUH, we know people are jerks sometimes, but assuming everyone is like that in an MMO in which you need people for just about everything is not good for anyone and is just flat-out stupid. There's plenty of people willing to help, and those who want speedruns of dungeons that are NOT linear can obviously go into pf for quick grinds.

I like the idea. I think they should take the diadem model and combine it with dungeons to a degree where you can have optional or even random side bosses that drop random treasure that could possibly high level. Some could be harder and some could be easier and drop rates would be affected accordingly. They would be optional and promote exploration for those who wished to do so.

Man, all these BRD lovers must have some rose-tinted glasses. When I played, it was a hated dungeon, and most people only went because they had to. While it wasn't my favorite dungeon, as long as I had a good group, it wasn't too bad. If I had a terrible group the dungeon was a nightmare.

As for making dungeons have more options, I want to bring up Haukke Manor. This dungeon has several easy optional areas (hallway before last boss, room before first boss, several "jail" cells before the second boss). I hardly ever have groups that want to clear these areas. They all have chests. They have these incentives to clear it. Yet no one does. What would change this?

Lastly, there was a post that said that most of these longer dungeons in single player games have save points. I think this is a huge point. Yes, there are RPGs that have dungeons that are 6+ hours to clear. But you also don't have to do it all at once. You can get on, clear a bit, save, and come back. Not possible in a group online setting.

Maybe we can get these kinds of dungeons when they release retainer/GC party groups? Then it would just be you. That is probably the only time I see something like this being used.

As I was reading this I was thinking that would be cool and the replies are just as true. People would complain it takes too long and just take the fastest route and would lead to a lot of rage quits from people and then complain this game is too hard.

My idea would be to make a maze of a dungeon but no trash mobs make them all mini bosses that open paths. Really why do we need to kill trash mobs? I'd rather fight boss after boss. (Maybe we can a few mobs here and there but just not a lot) So killing a boss would open a path but the path would always be random. That way people can't force to always take the same path and the quickest path. Also make these types of dungeons PF only. I know it sucks but for these kind of things it's just annoying to have a mess of random people, complaining it's too long or not what they wanted. You want a nice hard hardcore dungeon, fine PF and let's do it.

The reward has to be worthy of what we put in to get there. If the reward doesn't match the effort, people will take the most streamlined path possible.


For example, Haukke Manor:
No one does the side rooms because the items in the chests aren't worth it. The bonus EXP is mostly on the boss, so wasting time on the mobs on the side literally nets you a trash chest and some extra mobs for exp, wherein you could jsut be doing more que's instead.

Quarn, for example:
Doing two side rooms will save you having to do one pull that's annoying at the end, and gives access to a chest with loot. Most people don't skip the side rooms in Qarn, but that might be due to the Heads that I dont' know if they would follow you if you DIDN'T kill them.

So, how do we apply this to an end-game meta?
Easy. Add gear that's worthwhile to the side rooms. Make the fights more difficult to match the risk:reward. For example, say there's a side path you can take in the current dungouns. You clear it, and get to the boss. Beating the boss should award:
1) A piece of i200 Green gear
2) Additional esoterics to match the time needed to clear the hallway. If a room by an average party takes 30 minutes and yields 40 esos, make this room grant 10-20 esos for 10 minutes worth of work.

This is a way to add in midcore content that enables people to be rewarded for additional effort. It would also prevent ragequits because if your party can't handle it - just back out and continue down the normal path. Or you can choose to play it safe and just clear for your daily roulette bonus.

There are far more dynamic ways of making this content than there is right now - but SE is following FFXIII's model - Final Corridors with weak mechanics on bosses.

My two cents as someone who has professionally designed and built dungeons, raids and other instanced content for a triple A MMO.

If you create multiple branching paths, multiple bosses that will be randomly chosen, etc. All of that is extra content and development time that must be put in and that quickly chews through development resources. From a development standpoint it is better to put those resources into stuff you know will get played, instead of stuff that may just get skipped or not bothered with.
Why have two half-assed bosses, only one of which is guaranteed to be fought, when you could have used those resources to make one much better boss?
Create a dungeon with branching paths, multiple bosses that are selected randomly and all that jazz and you just used up the development resources for creating two dungeons and so instead of two separate linear dungeons, you have a single dungeon that branches and has some slight variations in it.
While you could try to reuse or repurpose assets, they still need to be properly integrated together and things like boss scripts still need to be created, so it may save some development time but often not as much as people like to assume and many times its actually less time and effort to do something from scratch than trying to rejigger something just to reuse it.

While some people may say they enjoy labyrinthine dungeons and the like, the reality is that most players don't. Players in general really don't like to backtrack, get turned around and lost fairly easily and dislike unnecessary travel time. They pretty much want to go from point A to B and get their reward quickly while having a good time along the way. Also, single player story driven RPG dungeons and MMORPG dungeons are completely different beasts. It's like comparing a Counterstrike map to a Bioshock level, sure they are both shooters but are vastly different in most other regards.

So, long story short, wanting more variation within a dungeon (i.e. nonlinearity, random bosses, etc.) is still more and more does not magically manifest and resources must be used up to make it happen, which results in more there but less elsewhere. Add to that the general player preference for things being more straightforward and less things that seem extraneous, and more linear but refined dungeon/raid designs end up being the best decision from a development point of view.
Overall two linear dungeons actually provides more variety in gameplay than one dungeon with branching for approximately the same development resources.

I'd be all for some form of nonlinear or somewhat randomized content, but that would have to be its own thing that has a separate resource pool allocated to it.

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Originally Posted by Veerne

There's no point in making dungeons labyrinthine because people will always just find the shortest and fastest route to the end. Even if you were to compare MMORPG dungeons to single player RPG dungeons, you have to keep in mind that in singe player RPGs the dungeons are the meat of the gameplay, whereas in MMORPGs they are just one piece of the bigger platter of content. MMORPGs also tend to focus more on the boss challenges, not exploration, since exploration is kind of useless in a game where you are meant to do the same place multiple times.

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I mean, you're right, but at least we'd have the option. We don't have any choice right now but to follow he straight line to the end.

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Originally Posted by WinterLuna

I mean, you're right, but at least we'd have the option. We don't have any choice right now but to follow he straight line to the end.

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But why? If people are going to do it once and be done, for 30 extra minutes in this one area, what is the point? Would the time not be better spent on something else that will be utilized more?

In the era o e-sports, where the only thing that matters is efficiency, there's no way they would implement something like this with the current playerbase mentality. sadly.

I miss FFXII, if only I could get an HD remaster, a FFVI remake or a game in the same type as those two, I'd drop FFXIV in the blink of an eye.

I think a complex open-world dungeon that takes plenty hours to fully explore would be pretty cool. Maybe add some couple of sanctuaries in it, serving as save points in single-player RPGs.

Other than a labyrinthine dungeon, I'd like to see a tower kind of dungeon, with lots of floors and gets harder when you progress more floors. I'd see that kind of thing as open-world though.

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Originally Posted by Squrilruler

But why? If people are going to do it once and be done, for 30 extra minutes in this one area, what is the point? Would the time not be better spent on something else that will be utilized more?

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Why give players interesting design and content for mid game? I guess you're right, they admit to being lazy anyway.
"We just went to get to endgame content faster! (To become bored of it faster, of course!")
Endgame, which is a carbon copy of the (no) design of mid game.
So are we using this extra 30 mins of time... crafting? SE is putting it into new hair?

Heaven forbid MMO's retain some semblance of open world immersion that hooked players back in the day.
Heaven forbid players don't want to be hand held like children in a straight, somewhat wiggly line.

Oh... wait.
That is what they want now.
RIP the genre we used to know, RIP interesting game design, Hello more glamors o7

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Originally Posted by Eimian_Eda

Why give players interesting design and content for mid game? I guess you're right, they admit to being lazy anyway.

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SE should just strip all stats and materia from gear and just give it an ilvl number and model. Then this game will truly trim off all the depth errr I mean "fat" that is "obsolete mechanics".

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Originally Posted by elemental10

Otherwise, that dungeon design will only lead to people finding out the least effort path, nullifying the reason for "dead ends" and other ways to get to the finish line.

In mazes (dungeons), the first and foremost objective is to get to the finish line. Other optional routes to other destinations are considered just that, Optional. So either make those "dead ends" reward something unique or the extra rooms and routes would be just for nothing.

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exept if the monster are randomized in terms of position, forcing the player to explore the area. if you know the map but not where are the monster it's still ok, the trouble of the dungeon are the lack of replayability, because when you did explore one time, you know what you will face the next time.
a lot of game with procedural generation have appear in the few last years, why not use the same sort of system for the dungeon. if will even be ok to have only one dungeon if is well done. but they really need to work on this a lot... do they have the manpower for make this sort of content sadly i doubt it.

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Originally Posted by Eimian_Eda

Why give players interesting design and content for mid game? I guess you're right, they admit to being lazy anyway.
"We just went to get to endgame content faster! (To become bored of it faster, of course!")
Endgame, which is a carbon copy of the (no) design of mid game.
So are we using this extra 30 mins of time... crafting? SE is putting it into new hair?

Heaven forbid MMO's retain some semblance of open world immersion that hooked players back in the day.
Heaven forbid players don't want to be hand held like children in a straight, somewhat wiggly line.

Oh... wait.
That is what they want now.
RIP the genre we used to know, RIP interesting game design, Hello more glamors o7

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the trouble is actually what you do the most, dungeon or raid? if you look at them number, dungeon are far more used than raid... why that? because we need to do them at least one time per day for the cap. the mid game is what we use the most and actually is the less interesting part of the game. i feel they really need to work on it... but i don't think it's a question to be lazy, more a trouble of support of SE HQ that think that the same team is enough for support a game played by more of 4 million player. FF14 need to receive more support from SE, more fund for them game and expand them team for get more different content release. but soo far, for them FF14 is a succes, but they prefer invest in the fast pocket money that represent mobile. that sad, but it's the reality of the japanese market.

I would love at least 1 (out of the two dungeons we get now) to have a non-linear design, it'd be a nice change of pace. The problem with it though is that, as said before, the "high-end" players would find the most "efficient" way to clear it with the least amount of work, and everyone would mindlessly follow their example, and we'd never be given the option to take another route. How often do you either choose to, or give others the choice to take the alternate paths in, say Dzemael Darkhold for the treasure chests? Or the extra rooms of Toto-rak, or Haukke Manor? It'd be wasted time for the developers to give it, because this community will NOT ever use it.

M

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Originally Posted by Felis

We need dungeons again similar to old Toto-Rak

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...ialDevices.jpg
Many paths, many endbosses, but only 1 endboss can be reached depending of the path the party unlock.

Gather first all blue photocells to unlock the blue gate. Then gather all green photocells to unlock the green gate or the door of the first endboss. Unlocking an endboss door use all photocells and the other gates of the dungeon can't be unlocked anymore.

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People cried so hard over that dungeon. I loved it. But people seriously whined so much that they ruined a good thing and now we don't get those anymore. Maybe SE will change their mind in a few years. Community already sunk that ship though. Especially with how they didn't like having to pick what loot they aimed for each run.

Basically, everyone here is asking for a different game. The only way a maze type layout with multiple, various rewards could work would be with gear variety and stat variety. We would also need longevity. Because no one will want to spend hours in a maze to gather fancy gear that will be replaced quickly.

Although, I suppose they could put very rare, random valuable items in chests with a low rng. Would be cool if they could change the items in the chests with every patch.

Purrsonally, I'd be fine just having the illusion of exploration.

Scarlet Monastery in oldschool WoW for example. I went into the physical monastery in the overworld and then had four dungeons next to each other to enter, two of which needed a key from the library. That "felt" like exploration, even though in truth all the dungeons were largely linear corridors. The dungeons still felt like part of the whole, something that's completely missing with Alexander for example.

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Originally Posted by Squrilruler

But why? If people are going to do it once and be done, for 30 extra minutes in this one area, what is the point? Would the time not be better spent on something else that will be utilized more?

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A lot of players would enjoy exploring the dungeon or going the different ways, even if they only did it with their FC. It just gives something more when you're doing a dungeon. I don't see the problem with that.