Better dungeon design?

[Pibz]

Coil just feels insubstantial. It feels incongruous. It just doesnt feel like its a single dungeon.

While i agree that for pretty much the rest of the dungeons it would be cool if it was just continuous space in coil itself it actually makes sense it isn't since from turn to turn you are going down an elevator, deeper and deeper into the structure as you go.

If you spawn a full dungeon from the get go the way you do in WoW and other lower level dungeons - you will put a lot of strain on the server.

Well, while I actually don't know why they make you go through those portals, it's not so that they can split the dungeon into smaller instances, as that just doesn't happen, for example you can attack the mobs upstairs in AK before you actually go upstairs. Also when you die, you go back to start.

[civilpaw]

Coil is split up so that you can clear it a turn at a time. You can leave, come back another day, switch jobs around, or even come back with an entirely different group.

Works in exactly the same way in World of Warcraft, and each raid is a single dungeon. Except for Siege of Orgrimmar. But it takes place on two continents.

edit: Also, I dont understand the need for the timers in the turns. It makes zero sense. At any time you can leave, reset the timer, and only have to trot a short distance back to the boss. Why not eliminate the timers? Seems completely arbitrary.

[civilpaw]

While i agree that for pretty much the rest of the dungeons it would be cool if it was just continuous space in coil itself it actually makes sense it isn't since from turn to turn you are going down an elevator, deeper and deeper into the structure as you go.
.

Ya, but aside from turn 4, it doesnt even feel like youre going on an elevator. its just a portal that teleports you to a lobby with another portal that teleports you to a another dungeon.

[civilpaw]

I reckon its more to do with server stability. If you spawn a full dungeon from the get go the way you do in WoW and other lower level dungeons - you will put a lot of strain on the server.

This makes little sense, as your counter argument references a game which itself successfully does that very thing. Blizzard can do it with a game that has many times the population this game presently has. Blizzard has been doing it for 9 years. Heck, Square-Enix has been doing it for... 12 years? Mind you, Final Fantasy XI's population has never been incredibly high, but even with griefers at Dragon's Aery, killing a boss has never been an issue.

We already have a couple of content thats not dungeon based. Look at Odin and Behemoth.

Valid point. Allow me to rephrase.

It would be nice to have world content that is worth doing.

How much fun it is stacking on one map tile with 200+ other people that are spamming AOE on a small piece of land. Or how it would occasionally crash the server?

I refer you back to reply 1.

IMHO - they do not have a good handle nor a good solution to handle non-dungeon based content. Its not their fault per se since World events are hectic & messy.

How exactly is it not their fault that they are unable to handle non-dungeon based content in their own product?

Unless something has changed or can be done i would refrain them from trying.

Again, I refer you to reply 1.

I understand where you are coming from - and i do root for them myself. But i would not trade them off for server stability/availability.

And once again, I refer you to reply 1.

Edit:

It seems that maybe some people missed my point a bit regarding non-dungeon content.
I would like for there to be reasons to go out in to the world, and awesome zones to go in to. At present, the only reason to venture out in to Eorzea is to utilize a gathering profession, or to level up. There's simply nothing else to do that doesnt involve entering an instanced dungeon, and after the changes to dungeon XP go live, leveling up will also take place in them (tho I dont hate this, as fate grinding is about the most awful thing ever). It doesnt have to be a boss encounter (tho I definitely wouldnt turn those down), but the two world boss encounters that exist offer nothing of value aside from 1 set of Chocobo barding that is only two-thirds awesome.

Note:

Just gettin nb4 "go back to wow". I do like FF14, and want to see what 2.1 has to offer before I make a concrete decision to stop or keep playing. And I enjoy how the producer (or whoever it is posting in his name) actually interacts with the community, instead of treating it like the enemy. I got very sick of the way Blue handled the community forums in WoW, for instance. I also enjoy the encounters in the raid dungeon. They seem fairly well thought out, tho a bit easy. But hey, introductory raiding should be that way. I just wish that there was more to do.

[Marxam]

wait, are we talkin the PS version or the PSP version. Cause I havnt played the PSP version.

Psx version. I do think it will work. As it stands the only real "puzzles" that we get are the boss encounters in coil. Most of the time dungeons consists of "do this" or "go here and do that" or "activate this". I think it would be much more interesting if dungeons had a puzzle that lead up to the boss. To go back to the Cave of Trials example, in the 3rd floor you had to enter rooms in a certain order to activate glowing tiles that when fully lit would open the boss door. Puzzles in dungeons would make this game more RPG-like than most mmo's imo.

[civilpaw]

Psx version. I do think it will work. As it stands the only real "puzzles" that we get are the boss encounters in coil. Most of the time dungeons consists of "do this" or "go here and do that" or "activate this". I think it would be much more interesting if dungeons had a puzzle that lead up to the boss. To go back to the Cave of Trials example, in the 3rd floor you had to enter rooms in a certain order to activate glowing tiles that when fully lit would open the boss door. Puzzles in dungeons would make this game more RPG-like than most mmo's imo.

Personally doubt people would tolerate that. People hated chess in Karazhan. Personally I dont mind a raid being a boss rush, but the dungeon itself just doesnt feel like a dungeon. The atmosphere is severely lacking.

[MirariMirai]

Personally doubt people would tolerate that. People hated chess in Karazhan. Personally I dont mind a raid being a boss rush, but the dungeon itself just doesnt feel like a dungeon. The atmosphere is severely lacking.

karazhan was one of the better raids designed in wow. I found chess "boss" in karazhan kinda entertaining. A puzzle once in a blue moon makes it refreshing for players. my 2 cents

[civilpaw]

karazhan was one of the better raids designed in wow. I found chess "boss" in karazhan kinda entertaining. A puzzle once in a blue moon makes it refreshing for players. my 2 cents

Oh, dont misunderstand. I LOVED Karazhan. Favorite raid in all of WoW. And I enjoyed chess. Solo'd it back when it was still current. Mind you, that required quite a bit of luck. Medivh, you cheating bastard. But I didnt know anybody else who liked that event.

[Lithera]

Given that the Lunatics in AK have been routinely summoning voidsent and have actively booby trapped the Keep with Vodoriga, it's not unconceivable that they could use simple teleportation spells to move around the ruins of the Keep. I know I wouldn't want to clamor up a set of crumbling stairs every time I needed to go to the top floors. The place is in terrible shape. The only other dungeon I can think of with teleporters like that is Cutter's Cry and that just reminded me of Quicksand Caves where you would fall through the quicksand pits to descend floors. Copperbell doesn't count because you're actually descending down the elevator so the dungeon is continuous.

[civilpaw]

Given that the Lunatics in AK have been routinely summoning voidsent and have actively booby trapped the Keep with Vodoriga, it's not unconceivable that they could use simple teleportation spells to move around the ruins of the Keep. I know I wouldn't want to clamor up a set of crumbling stairs every time I needed to go to the top floors. The place is in terrible shape. The only other dungeon I can think of with teleporters like that is Cutter's Cry and that just reminded me of Quicksand Caves where you would fall through the quicksand pits to descend floors. Copperbell doesn't count because you're actually descending down the elevator so the dungeon is continuous.

Does nothing to explain the ones in Halatali tho. Honestly it just feels like a cop out in design to me.