An idea for a new type of dungeon

I dunno if this is the right place to post this, but I just wanted to suggest a new idea for a dungeon in 3.x. My idea was to create a 4-man dungeon with 4 different paths, where party members will be required to split up and clear their own path in order to proceed further to the final room, regroup and fight the boss. Each path could have multiple trash mobs and a minor boss (easily soloable by any class) or some kind of tricky puzzle to resolve or to just interact with. A person who clears his own path should be able to unlock the way in order to reach an other party member who's still stuck in his own path and help him/her out. Once everyone has cleared the way, the can finally unlock the final door to fight the boss. Yeah, maybe it's just a stupid idea, maybe not. Let me know what you guys think and if SE should take this as a cue.

i don't think the idea is bad. and have seen games with instances like this. but i don't think it will be good in a 4man. each path would have to be assigned according to your current role. it would be very difficult to make every path easily completable by every class/job. unless it wasn't about combat and more about mechanics. like no need to kill or heal. maybe something else, you mentioned puzzles. all-in-all, i think it would be better employed on an 8man or higher. it will be easier to come up with more interesting content.

one thing you have to remember is that these instances are GROUP content. so individual paths are not very good idea. each path will have to interact with each other somehow. and each paths progression would have to be somewhat reliant on other players. so you wouldn't be able to clear your path on your own, despite being the only one on the path.

I love this idea, some of my favorite sections in both LotA and WoD is the Atomos fight where we have to break up into our individual teams and help the other teams by pressing buttons. It's simple now, but if SE could impliment these types of mechanics into more dungeons that would be great. To often are the dungeons, run straight, fight a boss, rinse, repeat. I want dungeons with a little more variety, and bosses too. Maybe have one were a player needs to be standing on a platform for some reason, but the player who is used "should" change based on the bosses demenor or something.

Splitting up to solve a puzzle? Sure, but I don't know if there should be trash mobs along the way.

Really depends on the context of the dungeon and how you do things. A lot of people are not going to enjoy farming something like that unless there are rewards for doing it the fastest and so on. In other games I've seen this kind of thing where you have to finish things and score points in a certain time with parts that you need to split up on. The first thing is figuring out where to place each party member and then learning to optimize what you do. If there were whole sections to go through soloing trash mobs then it would be boring but if sections had trash where they are designed for a certain party member and have class specific mobs and a puzzle to solve that could be interesting.,

An interactive dungeon? That would actually be awesome. Maybe have the path split between groups, where one group (8 man duty, 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps) each have to take a route, achieve objectives for the whole group to proceed. Kill a miniboss, open the door for the other team. Even have a time trial mode? The possibilities are limitless.

they just need to be shorter in general. in repetition they get mighty boring

I've always like the split away paths in dungeons. Especially in CT and WoD. Here's hoping for a raid where 4 people go one way the other 4 go another way. meet up at end for final boss.

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Originally Posted by Geddon

they just need to be shorter in general. in repetition they get mighty boring

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Actually I think the dungeons need to be longer, right now once the dungeon's get too easy, they feel like a boring grind.

This is what I'd like to do, but the scale probably doesn't work for FFXIV. In Wizardry Online, there are several dungeons that are only semi-instanced (They are instanced by channel instead of by party, and the boss rooms themselves are instances.) But they have a very epic scale to them, requiring finding maps, solving puzzles, and even "solo'ing" a boss while your party solo's others (really, everyone just waits and does them one at a time) Make a mistake... Wipe. Once you complete all the puzzles, then the boss room is open, and you never have to do the puzzle aspect again. There are teleport points for every floor once cleared on the largest ones.


In FFXIV, I could see something like this being possible as an "outdoor dungeon" with "Trials" for the boss rooms once solved. Right now the progression is way too linear, where you only get access to dungeons and trials through the storyline, not puzzles or anything "exploration"-worthy.