My thoughts on proper dungeon structure.

Hello Community and SE Team,

I thought I would give some of my thoughts on how to make proper dungeon structure. Some may look at it and say "This looks like concepts from other MMOs.", do know I give certain ideas from other MMO's because I believe they can work and be implimented into this game. I know some people have thrown ideas in, but I thought I would bring mine to the table.

Anyways, I feel that dungeon structure made by the development team went into a lot of wrong directions here and I want to throw ideas on how to make dungeons exciting, fun, fair, and worthwhile, becuase my opinion, none of these words come to my mind. So I am going to take certain concepts one at a time.

Lore Structure:

One thing that Final Fantasy has always been famous for, is it's stories and it's characters, one of the few things that has made it the flagship RPG franchise since the very first one. Here is what I wonder, why do dungeons lack this aspect? Sure we get an NPC request to do something in there, but it only feels generic and uninspired. When I go in, I want to see interactive cutscenes and stories to unfold within the dungeon, not outside by a drone NPC. I believe you need to step up on your game on this regard, it is embarrasing to Final Fantasy's reputation on story structure. While your main quest storyline is well done, it lacks in other areas that ask for it.

If there is anyone you can learn from in story structure within dungeons, it is definitely Star Wars: The Old Republic. You truly interact with the characters and the stories within them.

The Garlean Empire, they have so much potential, why do I not feel antagonized by them? They pull jerk moves here and there, but I don't feel threatened by them for the most part. Put more character into them besides the two Legatus. Have crazy scientist or put personality in the guards so we get an idea of how Garleans act amongst eachother and other people. In short, we need to put life into the NPC's, this is an empty world I feel like we are in. I do see however you are kicking it up, I really did enjoy the job quest stories and feel like you guys are on the right track, just apply it to your dungeons now.

Enemy Structure:

This is another area that was ill created. I understand ants in a antlion like den. One however bugs me are ones like Darkhold and Aurum Vale, where Garleans are patrolling around supposedly. Why are they only in one-two areas doing absolutely nothing and nothing interesting. Isn't the whole point of going in these dungeons is to beat the Garleans inside? Shouldn't they have bases and equipment setup in there to do their research? Shouldn't we be fighting patrols along the way?

How I would do Aurum Vale:

Go in and fight mobs and a Garlean patrol will see us and hit an alarm and we fight Garleans through the dungeons. Midway through the dungeon, a Garlean summons a mini-boss to try to stop us, like Coincounter they captured. When we beat him, we go through more mobs and Garleans. At the end, we think we are about to fight a Garlean leader after he gives a speech he is going to beat us, then Mizer's Mistress comes in and surprise attacks the leader, and then attacks us.

This above makes dungeons feel less generic and entertaining. Need something simply non-generic feeling. I hope in the future, you will take this into consideration.

Speed Run

I have already covered this in another topic, you can read it here.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/42529-A-better-idea-for-dungeons-besides-speed-run.

The speed run sessions of dungeons I believe hurt the game more than make it a challenge. So far all it does is make people go on cookie cutter setups and don't get to enjoy the dungeon at all. While there are still chances that cookie cutter groups happen, not having speed runs creates less incentive.

What I believe is the best way to make the 5th chest drop is by performing certain requirements within the dungeon to obtain it. If you can make a requirement to get the 4th chest by killing Marshall after Princess, why can't something similar be applied to Chimera or Mizer's Mistress? Only a quick idea and example, you could do something like "You need to hit Chimera with a pit 5 times to obtain the tier 5 chest.". Players do not want to rush through your content SE, they want to enjoy it. People want to go as jobs they want to be, not one that can be done the fastest. Why can't we impliment Toto-Rak's dungeon crawling system into here?

I want to enjoy your content SE, Cutter's Cry and Aurum Vale are real fun dungeons and very creative, I don't want to rush through it. Maybe an achievement is nice for speed run, but it shouldn't be the concept of obtaining the best gear.

Ever since my LS has been able to perform speed runs, I don't enjoy the dungeon like I use to and only think to myself what I said above.

Reward Structure

This one is quite a bother. I understand that Darklight is currently the best in the game, but why do we only get a chance at obtaining it simply by luck under the already hard conditions given to players? I don't believe this is right and unfair. Why is it unfair, you ask? I have done these two dungeons every single night ever since 1.21 was released. You know how many times I have seen the Heavy DPS set drop? None, absolutely nothing at all. You know what really sucks the most about this? Someone who hasn't even done 1/4 the amount of runs I have and he already have 3/4 pieces of the gear. Let me ask you Square-Enix, how is this fair? Why are we not rewarded on our efforts instead of luck itself? Its a lousy structure and it doesn't reward the hard working players at all.

Better ways to distribute gear:

You can keep the current drop rate system on gear, however, create a token system alongside it. For everytime you complete a dungeon, you get a set amount of tokens as a reward. At least with this, going through the dungeons consistantly doesn't feel like a complete waste of time. Like lets say you get 1 token per chest you obtain at the end of a dungeon, possibly getting up to 5 tokens. You can then have an NPC who can give you Darklight in exchange for tokens. Can be set up like this:

Body - 60 points
Hands - 40 points
Feet - 40 points
Head - 40 points

Not the best way points wise, but only trying to get the point across. SE, make each one of our runs worth it, don't make me feel like I am wasting my time.

Boss Structure

While you have already said that you will make it more melee friendly, future boss fights, I am still bothered by the inability to create balanced boss fights. Every single boss fight made in FFXIV so far has not been played the way they are suppose to be. Every single one, people have done nothing but find exploits and easy ways out with cookie cutter setups. You need to make bosses that cater to all jobs in play without feeling forced to go with certain setups.

You need to balance jobs heavily. People should be judged by their DPS potential, not the job itself. In WoW, while some inbalancing issues of their own, don't neglect people simply by their class, they are neglected by their gear status and ability to take on the dungeon/raid. FFXIV needs to be setup similar to this.

Conclusion:

It is hard to believe that the team makes dungeons that are generic feeling and that would of been made during the Everquest 1 days. Other MMO's today have gotten down how dungeon structure should work, I do not understand why SE cannot pull this off. All you have created is tedious tasks within an instance for an item you only get a 3-5% chance of seeing. Its non-rewarding, tedious, and after doing it too many times, not fun. SE, I hope you do see this and take into consideration what needs to be done to make dungeons successful in the future.

I have seen other people's ideas on dungeons and they sound alot better then what you have created. If the player base can come up with better dungeon structure then you, then there is a major issue here.

This is in no offense to you, on the large scale, you guys have been doing much better with the game with what you can work with, but if dungeons are set up like this in the future, then I worry what direction this game will go in, with so many other MMO's to compete with out there.

Thank you for listening. :)

meh a lot of this can be summed up with "easier said then done". However i do believe that there is a lot of room for improvement.

I really don't care for the linear designs of most MMO dungeons.
I guess it's less confusing for parties, but it's kinda boring.

Western MMO linear dungeon/raid design is horrible. Now with that said so is XIV's current dungeon design more so then western design.

The dungeons need to not be linear (LINEAR GO IN KILL MINI BOSS => KILL MAIN BOSS IS BAD DESIGN), there needs to be multiple paths/objectives in each dungeon, Traps, Unlock-able special fights, rare spawn in the dungeons themselves, and they need to trash the speed runs. Give alot more dept to the dungeons and increase the time limit to 120 mins (with or without time extentions).

Storyline needs to be improved so I agree 100% with the OP on this. ToR is not a good example though... they need to look at their previous FF games for story and lore, still very little games that can compete with SE on the story line of past final fantasy games.

on Drop rate I despise people being able to get the best gear quick in current mainstream mmos.. it is a mmo not an offline rpg. Tokens are fine but they need to require real work as well. So say 15 tokens and you get a piece of Darklight gear from that dungeon, boss chest has 100% chance of dropping each other chest has a 15% chance of 1 droping or something. People will scream about that as well... but that is a 100% garenteed 1 of the best pieces in the game every 3days basically if you are in a decent ls and do not free for all them. Best gear should be time consuming and should require alot of work. If everyone can get it easily then the content is negated in weeks.

The best gear is not required for anything in XIV, it is a reward for those who put in the time to WORK for it. That is my view on the best gear in any game.

Non-linear? Sounds like FFXI Salvage, whee! You can do it SE!

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Originally Posted by Gramul

I really don't care for the linear designs of most MMO dungeons.
I guess it's less confusing for parties, but it's kinda boring.

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Nothing wrong with non-linear. It goes back to my reference to SW:TOR dungeons, you go through different paths in the dungeons based on the decisions you make based on how you interact with the characters. Black Talon is a dungeon I would refer to. What I meant exactly was that SE needs to have their dungeons be more story interactive to be more interesting, don't have to go by how BioWare does it, I would myself like to see them put their touch on it.

I am sure these dungeons are not true end game content come 2.0, so I don't believe they need to be masterpieces per dungeon, but there is tons of improvements they need to make to them to make them the slightest bit interesting, and perhaps they could learn a thing or two form western developers.

Add a random element to the dungeons too - so far all we have is "run through a familiar path" every time you enter a dungeon. One thing that made replaying a dungeon less tedious was (and is) Diablo's random level generation.

Also, make something like .hack's multiple path dungeons, with different items dropping depending on the path you chose/actions you've taken throughout the dungeon (though do NOT make a path give you an additional chest - it will just make the other path(s) useless)

I don't mind the linear kill mini boss > kill main boss structure, I like having an objective.

There is something to be said about the poorly designed boss mechanics which favour certain classes and cookie cutter strategies, SE have never been good at balancing bosses and content even in FF11 they fell short of other MMO's out there.

People always claim that the only reason WoW is successful is because its easy mode etc, but anyone who has played end game content (especially hard mode stuff) know the fights are very well tuned and require a wide range of classes and can be killed with more than just one strategy.

SE have a lot of work ahead of them to make dungeons more interesting, and for god sakes please get away from the old school grind grind grind with <1% drop rates, nobody except masochists like that any more.

I like the above suggestion about making dungeons randomly generated although im not sure how you can fit a cave that changes shape every time you enter into the lore lol.

I would like to see a lot more puzzles in dungeons where your team has to split up, something like hunt down 2 keystones which have to be slotted into a wall to open a secret passage.

There was that cool mage circle in horutoto ruins which required a BLM,WHM and RDM to open the door something like that could be adapted for a dungeon.

dont like what your playing , play something else lol. simple. or just troll the forums lol.............

All your "points" for dark light gear need to be multiplied 2x, or 3x to compensate for the 300-400 runs some of us have done to this point.

The rest of the thread: TL;DR

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Originally Posted by aikawananase

dont like what your playing , play something else lol. simple. or just troll the forums lol.............

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Like you ya mean ?

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Originally Posted by Jinko

I like the above suggestion about making dungeons randomly generated although im not sure how you can fit a cave that changes shape every time you enter into the lore lol.

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Well, I think we will have Garlean/Allag related dungeons in 2.0, but you can have sliding walls even without the machinery. A magical labyrinth re-configuring itself to protect what's hidden inside of it could be fun.

Hmmm non-linear = nyzul isle + toto rak(modified to have diff items drop from diff bosses);

Tokens/points are a decent idea and have been used in many a game for EG stuff, having upgradable items (you know the kind) which require drops from the dungeon they're purchased from can balance the whole anyone/everyone will get this item, but only a few will have it upgraded in a shortish time.

Killing speed runs aside from removing the reward the reentry times have to be adjusted, there's no point in clearing a dungeon in 10 mins if you have to wait 6 hours from the last time of entry to reenter. Cookie Cutter parties become more a choice in how easy you want it to be than what drops you will get. Of course drop rates and token/coin/point rewards need to be adjusted to make it not take, assuming 0.25% drop rate, 400 runs @no more than 4/day = 4 months for 1 piece of gear to drop.

Bosses and every other mob in the dungeon need to "cater" to a particular job/class magic immune mobs, bosses that shift absorbtion type/immunities, and things of that nature would also go a long way to breaking up Cookie cutter parties.

Well back to work I go. ; ;

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Originally Posted by Jinko

There is something to be said about the poorly designed boss mechanics which favour certain classes and cookie cutter strategies, SE have never been good at balancing bosses and content even in FF11 they fell short of other MMO's out there..

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I've YET to play an MMO with a balanced dungeon or boss, ESPECIALLY from western MMO designers. By the way, Nyzul, Salvage and Einherjar were the most balanced of XI's dungeons and boss encounters.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I've YET to play an MMO with a balanced dungeon or boss, ESPECIALLY from western MMO designers. By the way, Nyzul, Salvage and Einherjar were the most balanced of XI's dungeons and boss encounters.

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There is no such thing as true balance, but bad enough to the point that other jobs are just a inconvenience to have is not good at all.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I've YET to play an MMO with a balanced dungeon or boss, ESPECIALLY from western MMO designers. By the way, Nyzul, Salvage and Einherjar were the most balanced of XI's dungeons and boss encounters.

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When Gw2 is released, you can play that and be happy that its western and balanced XD

I really think the DEVs had to rush content out, were all familiar with this games release and all the subsequent changes after.
thinking of it in that context , i think they've done a nice job and we shouldnt think that this is their best shot.
however, they cant and even if they could, wouldnt say as much.

Having said that , i agree with the OP, for Ver 2.0 i really expect a different direction for dungeon/instanced content
firstly... to hell with speed runs, i guess if enough players want them, keep them in some form, but not to decide rewards. just my opinion
secondly, liike Velhart and many others have mentioned, gives us a fleshed out story , go all freakin out haha


as a side note to the above: randomness is a dimension that should be added, think Radiant Story from Skyrim and dynamic events Guild Wars.
Exploration/Adventure, i dont mind getting lost in a dungeon, mazes , traps, deadly enviroments , puzzles, hidden doors, hidden bosses.
another side note: traps, hidden doors, things like that give you an opportunity to design a clever/cunning THF archetype

i think part of the problem is the carrot at the end of the stick design that some players in our community encourage, lets show the DEVs thats not what we want

id thought id add, to be clear : give us an adventure , a journey that exceeds the reward at the end

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Originally Posted by Jinko

I don't mind the linear kill mini boss > kill main boss structure, I like having an objective.

There is something to be said about the poorly designed boss mechanics which favour certain classes and cookie cutter strategies, SE have never been good at balancing bosses and content even in FF11 they fell short of other MMO's out there.

People always claim that the only reason WoW is successful is because its easy mode etc, but anyone who has played end game content (especially hard mode stuff) know the fights are very well tuned and require a wide range of classes and can be killed with more than just one strategy.

SE have a lot of work ahead of them to make dungeons more interesting, and for god sakes please get away from the old school grind grind grind with <1% drop rates, nobody except masochists like that any more.

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This. Though the thing about set ups in WoW was because the classes were split into their appropriate roles and then were balanced to perform at around the same level. That was a huge plus because you didn't have to worry about class or spec of the people attending the raid so long as your roles were covered. Some of the people in this forum are so stuck on the FFXI mentality of niches and "uniqueness" that it's going to take a lot of work to get them to accept that niche gameplay sucks and on a certain level prevents people from playing what they want.

Regarding dungeons:

I'm of the mind that dungeons should have mini-objectives if they make sense. More than just killing bosses to unlock an area.

Vanilla WoW's Temple of Uldaman had an optional boss that could be accessed after building the WoW equivalent of Raider of the Lost Ark's Staff of Rah (head piece and stick) by killing a boss that dropped the stick and then finding the headpiece somewhere in the dungeon.

Likewise, Dire Maul used to have a caveat in its design, as the reward from the last boss was better with the less bosses you killed. This in effect required you to be sneaky and creative when it came to getting around the dungeon.

Blackrock Depths also was creatively made to ressemble a city, with multiple paths and two very different objectives located on opposite ends of the city.

The first example could definitely work in XIV. Bonus bosses or extra treasure if certain objectives are completed. The last two are more iffy, because just as they were complex and vast, Dire Maul and BRD also required a good hour+ to complete (even more when it came to Dire Maul). I don't think most adults have that kind of time anymore.

I agree with the OP that speedruns are not exactly a good idea at this point in time. Maybe if we hit that point where the jobs and classes are performing equally at their chosen roles it could be reconsidered. A point in time where it's not about what classes/jobs you bring, but how well the players in the group know their roles, know the dungeon and so on.

I'd also like to mention my love for Ulduar's hard mode triggers, which is something the devs should consider when implementing bosses. Stuff like killing XT's heart, kill order for Iron Council or even pushing the Big Red Button (I'm not kidding. Pushing the Big Red Button sets the boss' room on a self-destruct sequence that causes fires and lots of AoE to the raid on top of dealing with the boss and gives you 10 minutes to finish the whole thing or die horribly).

I just don't want dungeons to feel like monotonous cut & paste environments where everything looks the same. Put some imagination into the layout, SE, and stop making every single passage and corridor look exactly like every other passage and corridor! Get artistic here and put some variety into the dungeon environments!

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Originally Posted by Rhianu

I just don't want dungeons to feel like monotonous cut & paste environments where everything looks the same. Put some imagination into the layout, SE, and stop making every single passage and corridor look exactly like every other passage and corridor! Get artistic here and put some variety into the dungeon environments!

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they likely will, if you saw concept of 2.0 dungeon.

The issue with current ones is, all the dungeons have been in since day 1, since beta, so they fall under the failure of the last team. All Yoshi did was put in mobs and make a sequence of events, nothing more. XD

sorry. out of context here (wish there were PMs), but...

Velhart, where did u get this:
http://chzgifs.files.wordpress.com/2...normallyp1.gif

I'm hoping it's a comedy dorama so that I could watch it. Really hilarious. lol

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Originally Posted by BobbinT

sorry. out of context here (wish there were PMs), but...

Velhart, where did u get this:
http://chzgifs.files.wordpress.com/2...normallyp1.gif

I'm hoping it's a comedy dorama so that I could watch it. Really hilarious. lol

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It says it in the bottom left corner of the .gif. >_>

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

there needs to be multiple paths/objectives in each dungeon, Traps, Unlock-able special fights, rare spawn in the dungeons themselves, and they need to trash the speed runs.

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That is definitely something I had never considered... that would be AWESOME.....

Not talking about the GIF website. :p

Where's that scene basing on? commercial or japanese dorama? I knew the guy from Kamen Rider fame and Sailor Moon live, I think his name is Jouji Shibue.

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Originally Posted by BobbinT

Not talking about the GIF website. :p

Where's that scene basing on? commercial or japanese dorama? I knew the guy from Kamen Rider fame and Sailor Moon live, I think his name is Jouji Shibue.

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Before FFXII was released in Japan, they had drinks at convenient stores that looked like Final Fantasy potions in promotion for FFXII, this was the commercial advertising it.

Now back to topic please. :)

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Originally Posted by Velhart

Before FFXII was released in Japan, they had drinks at convenient stores that looked like Final Fantasy potions in promotion for FFXII, this was the commercial advertising it.

Now back to topic please. :)

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Back on topic... I like variety... I'd love it if SE used all of these suggestions in all the different dungeons they make...
I would love diverse content all around...
I agree with all your points....

Perhaps 2.0 has already taken this into account. I know the classic "Wait for 2.0" is getting old, but it is extremely plausible that this is "filler" content and is not indicative of the 2.0 innovations

sorry for a little sidetracked, u did post a very amusing clip. lol

back to topic, maybe it's best if this game can provide dungeons for lower level experiences. I'm not really sure if I wanted CC or AV being dumbed down.
I'd agree it was geared for end-players, but what I like about these 2 are the unique content within it. It is frustating because I do too, but at the end when I saw rewards gotten by players who have struggle long enough it was like a marvel of happiness. :)

And I have to agree if the dungeons design were somewhat feels less compared to previous FF iterations. Plus, the sucky drop rates from Iffy fight for examples. There's still lots of area that feels abandoned like Coerthas. They do needs some improvements here.

Other than that, I still have many contents to gain here myself so I'm not going to brag yet. ;D