FFXIV dungeons are a little bit too linear?

[VisRalis]

Atm one of the closest thing to open world dungeon is O'Ghomoro Mines for the Kobold beast tribe quests.
Can do it solo. Incentive to do as party for faster progress.
Not that complex to go around but it 'feels' like it and gotta double check map because of the side rooms.
It's like a mini-mini dungeon with multiple objectives (Kobold beast tribe quests) which can be tackled in closest order.
While doing it, joining in the FATEs is nice too.

Its a good base for further expansion for depth... But totally lacking in rewards or reason to stay long for serious 'dungeon crawl' or 'grind in a dungeon'.
(Anyways because its intended to grind in instances not open field).

- Field mob loot drops are... what did they drop again? T_T wasn't significant to remember and not enough.
- Not enough particular NMs or higher tier enemies to be fought in 'random encounters' (besides that big flying mark that spawns in the deepest room).

Could go on but for what it is, it felt to closest to typical dungeon zone and was fun too delve into it to carry out the Kobold's quests solo and as party.
If it could be further expanded, it would be worth while to visit more often other than daily Kobold quests.

[Magis]

Funny enough O'Ghomoro was going to connect to Titan's chamber. Top right was a passage that wasn't accessible.

[silentwindfr]

open world dungeon mustn't and aren't the solution is worst actually, open world dungeon lead to abuse where people stay to a spawn of a monster for X time for get what they want. at the end is not anymore a dungeon, people farm one place in the dungeon and is all.
we mustn't look into past for find new solution but really in the present.
so far what are the trouble with the dungeon we do have in mmoprg:
- they are linear!
- they are unchanging, means nothing inside change from one runs to another.
- they follow the same rule, meaning: Trash until we reach the first boss, then more trash until the second boss, rinse and repeat until last boss.

what need to be changed is to change this 3 point.
make the dungeon, less linear, less unchanging and more important make them different, not forced to be a rush throught trash until the boss... it's a lazy way to make dungeon!

[dinnertime]

With open-world dungeons, they could make the monster spawn randomly and on random areas, so people are made to search every nook and cranny of the dungeon.
With instanced dungeons, yes, they're linear. Not only in structure, but also in mechanics since they are unchanging, and it's always the same formula of trash > first boss > trash > second boss > trash > third boss.

If dungeons ever become complex, with the structure and mechanics that it takes more than the usual 30 minutes to complete then i'm fine with that. The impatient would just have to suck it up.
Though it's dreading to think doing it with bad DF groups however. Then I might be the one who needs to suck it up. Ahaha.

[LunnaRavenheart]

Well its not about instanced vs open world dungeons for me. There is no need for open world instances. Instanced dungeons can be also nice like it was in WoW(BRD, Sunken Temple, Mara, Kara etc.)
There was open world part called pre dungeon (yes, small part of maze before dungeon - which was sometimes more complex than dungeons here in FFXIV, and actual dungeon.

Anyway one thing which also I dont like about dungeons and raids here, its like there are no structures which ties corridors together. Like Alexander or Coil. Bam turn 1, Bam turn 2, Bam turn 3 ... and I dont even know how i reached turn 2 from turn 1. Do you remember Kahrazan from wow? A house you can explore. You acctually know how you reached boss. And it was not like ... loading screen ... bam .. you spawned in location with boss like in ffxiv nowadays.

[Squrilruler]

Why give players interesting design and content for mid game? ...
Heaven forbid MMO's retain some semblance of open world immersion that hooked players back in the day.
Heaven forbid players don't want to be hand held like children in a straight, somewhat wiggly line. ...
RIP the genre we used to know...

I don't disagree that an "interesting design" would be bad. However, I would much rather have 3 different "linear" dungeons than 1 dungeon with 3 different paths.
I also have said that these kind of meandering dungeons would be great for the retainer/GC groups SE has said they want to implement.
Open world immersion? I feel this kind of thing works best in a single player setting (as well as this RIP the genre we used to know), where you don't have to rely on others to get stuff done. You can also save and clear it at your own pace. Everyone has their own play speed. And making content take 2+ hours is just not realistic for this mid game content...

A lot of players would enjoy exploring the dungeon or going the different ways, even if they only did it with their FC. It just gives something more when you're doing a dungeon. I don't see the problem with that.

I agree! However, I would much rather have 2-3 different dungeons than one huge sprawling dungeon that takes 2-3+ hours to clear.

[Kurogaea]

I don't disagree that an "interesting design" would be bad. However, I would much rather have 3 different "linear" dungeons than 1 dungeon with 3 different paths.
I also have said that these kind of meandering dungeons would be great for the retainer/GC groups SE has said they want to implement.
Open world immersion? I feel this kind of thing works best in a single player setting (as well as this RIP the genre we used to know), where you don't have to rely on others to get stuff done. You can also save and clear it at your own pace. Everyone has their own play speed. And making content take 2+ hours is just not realistic for this mid game content...

Are you kidding? Retainer groups would work even without linear dungeons because they will follow you wherever you go, even places that are unnecessary to finish a dungeon. 3 dungeons other than 1 dungeon the size of 3 dungeons? If you want to play a short dungeon I recommend dungeon crawler mobile games that meant to be played in spurts. Why play a huge MMO RPG if your going to do things in it that last 15 mins? If you don't have time to do an "average dungeon" dungeon in an MMO (which 14 does not have other than 2.x dungeons) then YOU should play a single player game, at least your game 5 hour rpg will seem longer than it is playing 15 mins a day. :/

btw, no one said the content will take 2 hours, who makes dungeons that take 2 hours?? Not even Skyrim has dungeons like that unless you have extreme bladder issues and pee every 5 mins, even then you should finish finding your goal in like 45 mins. 2 hours is over exaggerating.

[Squrilruler]

Snippety snip

Obviously you did not read what I wrote as I said the retainer+meandering dungeons would be a GOOD IDEA. I never said that 15 minutes spurts is what I am after, I actually think the current design of about 30 minutes is perfect. It is a little bit of a time commitment but it isn't going to take my entire night to clear. And it may not have been you, but there have been several people touting the BRD from WoW. While an interesting dungeon, it was long as fuck. 2+ hours for maybe clearing one side is not unusual. So yea, content being created now is not designed to be that long, but everyone who wants these types of dungeons wants dungeons like BRD, thus, wanting dungeons 2+ hours. And Skyrim definitely has atleast 2-3 of these huge 2+ hours dungeons... I remember on dungeon I was in hour many hours, clearing, having my inventory full, going back, emptying, coming back and continuing. There weren't a lot, but they are there.

[Dererk]

At this point they could just save money and development time by just making each dungeon a square room with trash that just spawn each boss after all trash is dead.

That's pretty much what every dungeon is right now anyway mind as well make it official.

Ps. SE if you take this seriously then shame on you.

Pps. Just make all dungeons open areas to explore after we cleared them once.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

At this point they could just save money and development time by just making each dungeon a square room with trash that just spawn each boss after all trash is dead.

That's pretty much what every dungeon is right now anyway mind as well make it official.

Ps. SE if you take this seriously then shame on you.

Pps. Just make all dungeons open areas to explore after we cleared them once.

If it saves me time, sure