New Content Idea / minor rant.

[kyuven]

- I talk about dungoens not linearly, but a big place to explore. Going in there should take from 1 Hour to just find the boss the fastest way upto 4 if you go full explore.
- With maps not exactly the same each time but some diversity (chest and boss location)
- as well as "random-encounters"... like not placing the same enemys at the same places, thus preventing mindlessly pulling all mobs until you hit a aritificial wall, rinse, repeate...
- place in there some rare and strong enemys as well.
- Spread Chests across the Map, one or two of it filled with really interesting loot (for example, a mount), with a random but not ridicolous chance of appearence (say, 20%)... and if you the good loot don`t shows, at least it should drop something of use (not 2 Elixiers/Ethers)...
- you can make it 8 Char or even bigger, so groups may split and explore different regions of the map at the same time, but you can call your group if you encouter something big for reinforcement.

Sounds like you want open world, non-instanced dungeons...but...
1) They tried this in 1.0. Moreover, even FFXI doesn't have dungeons that take an hour to traverse unless you kill each and every enemy individually. Trash mobs are not popular.
2) Random chests? Sure why not.
3) Again this is something even older games like XI and EQ1 thought were bad ideas. They'd have "named/NM spawns" but enemy spawn camps were pretty well fixed. Anything "random" had to be triggered manually. The very first order of business all players took when "traps" were found that triggered mobs was to give detailed write-ups on how to avoid them.
4) This is something a lot of MMOs used to do, but it became simpler to just have fixed or spawned bosses, as competing for these open world spawns and spending hours with the random number generator was horrid. Plus, this is what hunts are.
5) This already exists. The chest locations are just fixed.
6) Again it sounds like you want an open world dungeon. I'd like to remind you that in most open world dungeons, those other players aren't "reinforcements"...they're competition. If you mean like 24 man raids...well, maybe.

The problem is this is not how the game is designed. It's "scenario based." While a large dungeon you enter with multiple groups and have to find your way through a la Kefka's Castle in FF6 sounds great on paper...coordinating 24 people through a winding maze full of RNG baddies just doesn't quite work from a practical standpoint. There are already problems with the very, VERY basic Tower raids we already have. If it's a lucky day when you can get all 3 groups to stand on their pads in CT, then relying on a group to handle something complex like deciphering an ACTUAL progression puzzle is asking for the moon.
Add to that 3-5 hours for raiding is actually UNUSUAL. Of course there are raid groups that go for that long or longer (mostly trying the same encounters over and over til they get it), but the majority of players do not have the patience or time to commit to a 5 hour raid. This is part of the reason we have timers on our instances. It's not even MEDICALLY a good idea and promoting such is asking for trouble.
Hell, back in EQ1 and FFXI they drew the line at 8 hours, and that was for clearing zones the size of Coerthas. Even Dynamis, XI's first raid, had a flat limit of about 3.5 hours a day.
And before you say "Well it should be an option!" Please consider the development resources that would have to go into making a 5 hour raid that only a fraction of the already small number of dedicated raiders (we're looking at less than 10% of the playerbase here) would have any interest in.

[wicked-one]

Please consider the development resources that would have to go into making a 5 hour raid that only a fraction of the already small number of dedicated raiders (we're looking at less than 10% of the playerbase here) would have any interest in.

jeah, i see you didn´t really get the idea, and if it may come one day or another, feel free to not participate in it.

[Pandan_1]

There is plenty of challenging content in this game. And while I'm a huge casual myself, I can still see why non-casuals would be upset if there wasn't enough to do.

Luckily for most players, there is still tons of stuff to do in the game.

[kyuven]

jeah, i see you didn´t really get the idea, and if it may come one day or another, feel free to not participate in it.

Oh I got it, and I've seen it done in other games. I would actually participate if the rewards were good enough.
They're just not practical to develop for this game. Or any game, really.
Nothing in this game REQUIRES more time than about 30-45 minutes to complete, with hard limits at 2 hours for raid content.
In addition, it's actually considered bad form now to have content that takes an excess of 2 hours to complete. People need breaks, and not everyone has 3-5 hours to burn on a single "thing." EQ1 and XI learned this the hard way when WoW's much less time intensive model blew them out of the water. There have also been lawsuits over this sort of thing.
So by developing it, two things happen:
1) Players complain that only the most hardcore with the most time on their hands are able to do the content. And they're absolutely right.
2) The content gets abandoned and actually trying to do it becomes nigh-impossible because, again, you're catering to less than 10% of the game's population. In fact the % is even smaller than that since many of THOSE people can't stand to spend more than 2 hours doing content.
3) An exploit or "golden path" is found, and people blast right through it and we're back where we are now, just with a ton of unused assets. To give an example of what I mean: Take a look at Tam-tara, Toto-rak, Brayflox's Longstop Stone Vigil, and Sunken Temple of Qarn. Each of those dungeons has extra "goodies" you can get for completing certain objectives or, more commonly, entering specific rooms that are off the beaten path. If you run those dungeons right this second, however, most parties will skip those rooms. Even EXP parties skip those rooms.

In other words, it's just not happening, because this isn't that type of game. Open world, "difficult" content is apparently coming in 3.0, but it's not going to be anything like this and will certainly not take 3 hours to complete.
Random chests, though...maybe.

[wicked-one]

I agree with you, 5 Hours straight might be out of place, and my OP wasn´t like "do this exactly as I explain you now"... but i really wished for something which lies in between we got now, as it is.

grinding content like relic, taking weeks
farming content like fcob, taking 10 minutes, rinse, repeat. *

* not including
before: waiting for partyfinder to fill with strangers
- do the content
after: get replacement for the one guy who has real world matters. rinse, repeat

thats the basic idea, get to do something with your friends/fc, which isn´t coils 2-8 minutes ´til wipe until you got your mechanics straight and do it blindfolded in the future...

as my excessive use of "rinse, repeat" might suggest, i wish for some more variation of content.

and as people said, there is much to do in this game, ... some bring in Triple Triad. Thats one point i personally don´t care, where others dump tons of time... why we shouldn´t develop something other which caters another player group (even if it´s not the majority)

and tbh, i don´t care for the ups and downs and the discussion, they might pick up the idea, or not... both is beyond my power ;-)

[Sylve]

Please consider the development resources that would have to go into making a 5 hour raid that only a fraction of the already small number of dedicated raiders (we're looking at less than 10% of the playerbase here) would have any interest in.

If you used something like what i suggested, Development time would only be the time taken to write up a Random Generator code, catalogue/label assets for it to use and then let the game do the rest.
It wouldn't need a story the way our present Raids and Dungeons do.
Hell, just station a Grand Company soldier at the entrance to "recruit adventurers explore this unknown land we discovered" and that's as far as you need to for writing.

[ruskie]

While 4h I consider a bit unreasonable having something that actually takes near 2h to complete would be probably ideal - most people I believe could give that much time in a single session. Yes having things like a labyrinth that changes each day(with maybe repeat maps like every 30 days starting?) would be nice.

I'd also like to see something like this that involves puzzles(yes I know the first time you solve it will be the only time you do it then it's just repeat), split paths for groups, gauntlets and such.

One of my ideas is a dungeon that 6 light parties enter at different entrances and then follow their own path. They each need to get through, and do something along the way and at the end.

Example:
one group needs to find certain items in chests and in the dungeon itself - imagine a corridor full of chests - with various level mimics in between.
one group would need to trigger 4 pads - each pad would spawn a mob periodically that one of the people in the party would need to kill and stay on the pad while the others go to the next one - repeat until the last one - the pad itself would open a path while it's active
one group simple has puzzles to do to hit the right buttons
one group has a gauntlet of mini bosses to get through
one group has traps to navigate - each triggered trap would pop a ton of mobs
one group would have to do jumping puzzles or something else

And you could mix and match the above mechanics for each party each time.

And to top it off have NMs romaing around - some that just roam while others that actively hunt.

This could be something to work for 2h(with a 4h max limitation) or so. On top of that yes instanced but it would save the instance progression(same as coils pre df). You could enter with just 1 party and do it all - but you would need to enter through a different path each time - each path once complete would unlock a part of the final boss and such(and of course the final boss would be adjusted based on the number of parties).

It could be very fun.

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

Ya I'm sorry but I don't want to hear another word about people saying things require grind and no skill. They gave everyone content that required skill and over 90% of the community didn't even bother doing it. And now we are getting an LFR version of the content that required skill. So at the end of the day a lot of NA players are all talk and no action.

Pretty soon this game will become just like wow, where outside of raids you don't actually even play it. You just send out minions to do all your daily quests and dungeon runs for you and log off. Such a sad state that this is what modern MMOs have become IMO.

EDIT: But I do like a lot of your ideas OP. But truthfully I think I'm kinda done with MMOs soon. Most modern MMOs are just too easy, level caps can be reached in 2-4 weeks and theres little to no endgame because people don't actually want to group up outside of duty finder anymore. There is almost nothing that is massively multiplayer about any of these MMOs lately.

[Sylkis]

Hard and long levequests? Leves have random chests and sometimes a random "boss" mob, can just extend the area, number and difficulty

[Ashkendor]

If you used something like what i suggested, Development time would only be the time taken to write up a Random Generator code, catalogue/label assets for it to use and then let the game do the rest.
It wouldn't need a story the way our present Raids and Dungeons do.
Hell, just station a Grand Company soldier at the entrance to "recruit adventurers explore this unknown land we discovered" and that's as far as you need to for writing.

The only problem with flat-out random generation is that it's quite possible to end up with a dungeon that's actually impossible to complete. I'd be pretty pissed off if I went into an instance that I had no choice but to abandon.