FFXIV dungeons are a little bit too linear?

[Dotsusama]

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Might be nostalgia blindness? I can only speak for myself of course, but I've found nearly every game from the PS2 on with dungeons to be incredibly linear, barring maybe the .hack franchise.

[Iromi]

I hate..and I mean HATE running dungeons in this game. They feel very linear...I like your suggestion OP, is a really good idea.

[File2ish]

They're trying to cater to the largest audience. And the majority wants things to be relatively fast, regardless of linearity or complexity (the majority of them would prefer the former). When they added certain mechanics, like a puzzle or a boss mechanic that made it comparatively more difficult (thus lengthening the time they had to be in the dungeon) people complained-- a lot. What more if we get larger dungeons or multiple paths? Party finder specific groups aside, duty finder runs will immediately look for the most convenient/quickest path through the dungeon for the roulette tome bonus.

That said, I'd prefer it if they made the dungeons have, at the very least, a branching path or two. I'm actually surprised there haven't been more complaints about the linearity after FFXIII's release (because everyone and their dogs were bashing it for how linear the maps were, and that you could see how linear it was on the minimap).

[Jim_Berry]

Here's one from FFXI:

[Felis]

Might be nostalgia blindness? I can only speak for myself of course, but I've found nearly every game from the PS2 on with dungeons to be incredibly linear, barring maybe the .hack franchise.

Final Fantasy XII Lhusu Mines

[Culfinrandir]

U'Ghamaro Mines is everything but exciting..

The layout is, imagine if it was a real dungeon, compared to those linear ones we get. I'm not saying that it's exciting as it is now, just the design.

[Culfinrandir]

I think you're a little backwards here. The casuals are the ones who would like this the most. They wouldn't mind stopping to smell the flowers and appreciate possibly labyrinthine design. It's the "hardcore" crowd that would hate it and demand people take the fastest route.

Precisely, I enjoy runs in levelling roulette where I get an enthusiastic newbie who wants to see everything. If my time is too tight to do a FULL dungeon run taking as long as it takes then I shouldn't be running it outside of a premade. Sorry about it, but it's true. It's a game, not a punishment to be over and done with ASAP.

[Culfinrandir]

Thing is if they just removed their "Invisible walls", despite how much SE loves them, dungeons (and the world) would become so much more open instantly. No resource cost there.

Until you figure in that it's highly unlikely that areas behind the invisible walls have been checked for collision & trap problems, out of bounds entrances, crash-causing texture errors, etc. I remember how long it took to debug simple Quake levels to ensure things like the above didn't creep in and that was far, far more simple a setup.

[Morningstar1337]

While this is true, I have to ask: When did MMOs go from being time sinks to instant gratification speedrun zerg fests?

My guess, the time WoW launched