Making Open Dungeons [Give your opinion and ideas too!]

(I separated it into smaller parts to make it easier to read, that's why there are posts between the preface and the actual deal.)

Heya everyone.

Today I will talk about an idea I had, but first I need to make some kind of preface to precise some stuff about this.

First; this is probably gonna be really long to read so, be brave ^^'''
Second; this is not just a suggestion, It's a complete plan that took me a lot of time to make.

For these two reasons, I suggest you to go get some drinks, snacks and also something to write down every idea you get while reading this, all idea, even the most silly one can fuel better concepts.

(Oh and, I don't know how it actually works but I guess the more you get likes, the more likely it is that it get seen by the dev so please don't forget to like if you do ^.^)

Thanks.

I like this idea a lot. Makes me think back to the dungeons in Ultima Online, the lower you went, the bigger the baddies became. And the idea of no loot, just the achievement would be a breath of fresh air! No yelling if you're new and don't know the place... Maybe there could be a bonus to be earned for your FC?? To make it more a team thing to do?

UO is kind of old to me :p but i guess it must have been a nice game ^^
Well... That could actually be a good idea, but I wonder what kind of bonus you can give... Since the idea was that the more team mate you have the further you can go, I didn't thought about that, I'll find something ^^
Maybe the monsters can give nice crafting material like in treasure hunt :)

Oy! Are you calling me old??

Anyways, about the bonusses, maybe they could incorparate some sort of dungeon seals. And you would earn the seals if you would adventure into a dungeon, like you suggest with a full or light FC party. Those seals you could maybe hand in at your GC for special house furniture, like a flag outside with your company crest. Oh, or maybe a book! One that would chronicle the adventures you and your FC have together?
My imagination is running wild now, hehe :-)

Sounds nice. I like they multi-paths big world idea. We could have one road with very strong monsters that you possible can sneak by and one not so thought monster on another path.

Caelia, oooh nice idea :3
No problem xD imagination is humanity's motor!

Moon, yeah that was the idea ^^

Part 1 (repost for more visibility, the first version was a bit too... Cramped?)

Some of you may have seen people asking for more difficult content, bigger maps or open world dungeons like those caves in V1 but only a few actually made their thoughts any deeper than some random suggestion that might be nice but are a bit too vague IMO.
Which is why I started to think about how to please all these wishes in one swoop and eventually found a solution that would do so without being really hard to do.

I will explain in separated parts, first thing is how to make those special dungeons really large..
How about simply making zones that work like normal maps, you could go there as easily as it is to go from Central Shroud to go to Eastern Shroud?
The size would be just fine if it was as big as Coerthas actually is, however to make it look bigger and and more dungeon-ish we'd need some adjustment and fully use it's space instead of making it a wasteland like it is.
That can easily be done by restricting movement through walls or stairs,cliffs etc... And make it so you actually have to venture the whole map instead of just it's main roads.

However following one road would be too easy and boring, making it like a maze with multiple roads would make it funnier since it would take a few runs before you actually know the whole map.
since this is a dungeon there is no need to make those zones as unique as our maps are, a really few unique small parts can easily make the job, this way there is more space for the dungeon itself.

Part 2 (visibility repost)

Following that idea, let's see the second part, how to make it difficult.
I have to warn you beforehand... I'm a real sadist xD
Those ideas, used by people with distorded minds like me can easily make you suffer and you should be happy I'm not a game designer, you'd go crazy ;P
Jokes aside, the concept is really simple, for this part I was heavily influenced by how coil works.
First of all, loot farmer are gonna be disappointed, the kind of dungeon I am talking about cannot be cleared, not exactly which means no farming.

But before that: how to enter those; like any normal zone, you can go alone or with friends, the latter being recommended due to the difficulty, even with your chocobo if you want.
That is the open world part. (I know it's not much but you'll understand as you read.)

Until now, our dungeons purpose is to clear it by killing most monster and finally the last boss with some loot as a reward, however those I am talking about have a different goal... It is to see how far you can go.
Like coil, it would be segmented, you start at... Well for exemple 1st floor and your goal in this floor is to find the entrance to the next part in this maze.
However, there is no checkpoint, if you die you go back to your return point since it is still working as a normal world zone.
Well no real problem since you have the map, you won't have to search again unless you wanna explore everything.
(I hesitate about that point since it might be a bit extreme, in that case putting an aetherite in each floor's starting point could make it better.)
This is we're you can get really tricky, for each floor you reach, the monsters gets nastier and nastier with traps, some that you can survive, others that are made for the sole point of killing you, you can easily compare how it works to try and die games like super meat boy.

Part 3 (visibility repost)

A perfect example of this would be this:

Your party reaches a point where the roads separate in two, on the left part stand a huge golem that looks like he could easily kill you in a swoop or two.
On the right part waits a small army of kobolds, they're clearly not as strong as the golem but judging by their number, you can easily understand that they are more dangerous than the golem so you decide to go for the first one.

The golem is so strong that most of his attacks are almost powerful enough to one shot you DPS members, that fact could easily be ignored until now since the tank generates enough enmity to keep the mob on him, but what if the mob sometimes gets protection against enmity attacks like tank uses?
The tank would have to be extremely careful when to use it since he'd have to be aware of his own tp and to get the golem back to him whenever he goes to the dps
The dps would have to be careful not to attack so the tank can get the golem back
And finally the healer will have a hard time healing everyone while making sure his mp doesn't reach 0

However you eventually manage to defeat him and he leaves a chest behind him, you open the chest while resting... Huge mistake, the chest does have a nice loot in it but is also a trap that make the kobold army rush at you and kill you all since you all are low on Hp, Tp and Mp.

Part 4 (visibility repost)

This is the kind of trap that definitely kills you and can also be avoided if you wait until you are full before opening the chest, from that point you can either run for it and escape since you're full, thing that would not be possible if you had opened it just after the fight or you can fight them too, risking your progression but giving you the possibility to get a second reward.

That is why you'll need to find a party you can trust and cooperate well with.
Hard but not impossible to do, it would be like fighting a less dangerous Titan ex every 5 corners, you can easily die but if you get the trick you can make it, even casuals can (I'm not gonna enter that subject as I think that both casual and veteran can be stronger or weaker than the other.)

It's difficulty would be high enough to leave enough time for the devs to develop a few more "turns" before most teams reaches the last one, that way it can go on.

I know it might look kind of frustrating to die just before reaching the next floor but, instead of seeing people say stuff like "damn I had the last allagan part just before me but some other dude got it -_- oh well.. Next time."
You'd see "aaah damnit we almost reached the third floor! Only 20 meters and we had it but some stupid bombo popped out of nowhere >_< Next time we'll get it for sure! ^^"