Platforming and puzzles in an MMO...

[Preypacer]

FFXI had a several instances of this.

The earliest one was probably the "three-mage gate" where you needed one of each of the color mages to stand on a glyph to open it. The Eldieme Necropolis had levers that controlled gates, requiring more than one person to work together to progress. Beadeaux had a fairly unique system where you could voluntarily silence yourself at some machines in order to avoid being cursed (greatly reduced HP/MP and movement speed) when passing by other machines. Castle Zvahl also had a lot of drops to platforms at different levels, as well as teleporters. Many areas, mostly dungeons, had one-way drops and holes in the floor to other maps.

With Zilart the Quicksand Caves had pressure plates that required the weights of different races in combination to open doors, as well as one entrance that could only be used after activating several pillars around the entire desert. The Temple of Uggalepih had one-way drops and keys that were required to access certain areas. Ifrit's Cauldron had you avoiding flame spouts and carefully planning routes down one-way drops. And of course all of Tu'Lia, especially the Shrine of Ru'Avitau, had several key/switch areas and tons of teleporters.

In the Promathia expansion most level-capped story areas had some sort of classic dungeon progression gimmick. The areas of Promyvion under the crags required you defeat gates and use teleporters to continue to the end. Phomiuna Aqueducts had multiple levels, one-way doors, and keys, and there is an area that requires players to flip switches in a certain pattern to open a door for a story mission. Riverne used teleports and keys. The Sacrarium had a maze that shifted to different patterns with each game day. Fei'Yin was nothing but various kinds of different puzzles. Attohwa Chasm had a large mountain with a very confusing method of climbing that must be conquered under a time limit for a story mission and some other quests. Movalpolos required people to use furnaces to rotate gates. Ulegeurand Range had very strict paths and drops you had to take to get anywhere, and IIRC one even required you moving your character mid-air to hit a landing. And of course Lumoria had crazy teleports and was confusing like Tu'Lia before it.

In Aht Urhgan areas returned to a larger scale, and all of the dungeons had their own gimmick. Arrapago Reef had one-way drops and keyed doors. Halvung had many separate entrances and lever-controlled gates. Mamook got the multiple levels and one-way drops. Eventually they added something more unique with Alzadaal Undersea Ruins, which connected to many of the other areas with a series of teleporters.

The entire game had things like strategic placement of enemies you had to wait to turn their backs to avoid, hidden areas of maps you had to figure out how to traverse, and multiple maps to figure out how they connected to each other.

I don't know if any of the same area designers are working on XIV, but I'd love to see that same kind of classic dungeon crawling experience in it. Promathia in particular often felt like you were one member in an old-school FF game, while you worked with your party to figure out how to get through an area together.

An emphatic YES to every example given in this post... and then some.

[ellohwell]

My favourite games of all time are tomb raider games because of the sense of exploration and puzzle solving. If they add dungeons in the style of tomb raider games, I would love it. Of course a puzzle in an MMO needs to be quite dynamic due to the repetitious nature of the genre and the inevitable use of guides.

[Roaran]

Zelda and Portal 2 did this very well. The problem is if you don't do it well, it becomes a nuissance and becomes a negative instead of a positive. Much of the examples given from FF11 were puzzles done VERY poorly.

Thousand Maws almost had it, by having the multiple paths and the different methods of unlocking them. But it has to be like something where... you walk into a big room, and you see that your path is blocked, and at first you don't see any way across.... but by exploring the room and discovering various mechanisms/magic devices, that do various things, that by combining them in certain ways and in a certain order, the path could be unlocked, or if you make a mistake, enemies flood the room.

That said, FFXIV IS NOT A SINGLE PLAYER GAME, and just having a single variation of the puzzle really is not acceptable. You have to have first multiple variations, and then you need to make it hard for players who have attempted and completed the puzzle multiple times to solve the puzzle just from memorization alone. Otherwise the puzzle becomes a chore.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

Technically, Darkhold has some puzzles to it.

Yes, this is true, but in all seriousness, i kind of having the blur moment with the puzzle *_*"

[Kiote]

It really is a shame how just about every MMO company can't see how great this would be.

[Shipp]

FFXI had a several instances of this.

The earliest one was probably the "three-mage gate" where you needed one of each of the color mages to stand on a glyph to open it. The Eldieme Necropolis had levers that controlled gates, requiring more than one person to work together to progress. Beadeaux had a fairly unique system where you could voluntarily silence yourself at some machines in order to avoid being cursed (greatly reduced HP/MP and movement speed) when passing by other machines. Castle Zvahl also had a lot of drops to platforms at different levels, as well as teleporters. Many areas, mostly dungeons, had one-way drops and holes in the floor to other maps.

With Zilart the Quicksand Caves had pressure plates that required the weights of different races in combination to open doors, as well as one entrance that could only be used after activating several pillars around the entire desert. The Temple of Uggalepih had one-way drops and keys that were required to access certain areas. Ifrit's Cauldron had you avoiding flame spouts and carefully planning routes down one-way drops. And of course all of Tu'Lia, especially the Shrine of Ru'Avitau, had several key/switch areas and tons of teleporters.

In the Promathia expansion most level-capped story areas had some sort of classic dungeon progression gimmick. The areas of Promyvion under the crags required you defeat gates and use teleporters to continue to the end. Phomiuna Aqueducts had multiple levels, one-way doors, and keys, and there is an area that requires players to flip switches in a certain pattern to open a door for a story mission. Riverne used teleports and keys. The Sacrarium had a maze that shifted to different patterns with each game day. Fei'Yin was nothing but various kinds of different puzzles. Attohwa Chasm had a large mountain with a very confusing method of climbing that must be conquered under a time limit for a story mission and some other quests. Movalpolos required people to use furnaces to rotate gates. Ulegeurand Range had very strict paths and drops you had to take to get anywhere, and IIRC one even required you moving your character mid-air to hit a landing. And of course Lumoria had crazy teleports and was confusing like Tu'Lia before it.

In Aht Urhgan areas returned to a larger scale, and all of the dungeons had their own gimmick. Arrapago Reef had one-way drops and keyed doors. Halvung had many separate entrances and lever-controlled gates. Mamook got the multiple levels and one-way drops. Eventually they added something more unique with Alzadaal Undersea Ruins, which connected to many of the other areas with a series of teleporters.

The entire game had things like strategic placement of enemies you had to wait to turn their backs to avoid, hidden areas of maps you had to figure out how to traverse, and multiple maps to figure out how they connected to each other.

I don't know if any of the same area designers are working on XIV, but I'd love to see that same kind of classic dungeon crawling experience in it. Promathia in particular often felt like you were one member in an old-school FF game, while you worked with your party to figure out how to get through an area together.

<3

I think these things really fostered a lot of friendships in the game. You couldn't progress through certain places without the help of others, as you mentioned. I had a few friends in XI that I would always help with things like this, and they'd always help me. I don't want the whole game centered around this where nothing can be soloed, but at the same time, I do want a lot of these elements in XIV, as it helps maintain bonds.

[Claire_Pendragon]

The problem with most of FFXIs 'puzzles' was the lack of 'playing' with them.
You couldnt get ur hands dirty, and just mess around with a puzzle, until u got it right.
Most required other people to just kill things, or run from point a, to point b.

And when you are with other people, MOST of the time, THEY don't want you wasting their time, and will leave or quit if you didn't just look up the right way.

Puzzles like FFXI are still slightly welcome, for change of pace, BUT for the "Zelda feel" the OP might be suggesting, it would require some 1 player content in mind.

[Roaran]

The problem with most of FFXIs 'puzzles' was the lack of 'playing' with them.
You couldnt get ur hands dirty, and just mess around with a puzzle, until u got it right.
Most required other people to just kill things, or run from point a, to point b.

And when you are with other people, MOST of the time, THEY don't want you wasting their time, and will leave or quit if you didn't just look up the right way.

Puzzles like FFXI are still slightly welcome, for change of pace, BUT for the "Zelda feel" the OP might be suggesting, it would require some 1 player content in mind.

Not necessarily, if you give everyone a role for the puzzle that requires them to understand how the whole puzzle works in order to do it properly, you could involve any number of players, just so long as each player is involved to a certain degree.

[Quisi]

Everyone would look puzzle solutions on the net. MMO communities value only effectiveness. It would only work for instanced 1 player missions.

[ellohwell]

Everyone would look puzzle solutions on the net. MMO communities value only effectiveness. It would only work for instanced 1 player missions.

That's not necessarily true because most players only look up guides if the quest is too difficult or if they're a certain kind of hardcore.

I know I didn't look up a guide for those stupid banishing gates in FFXI until I needed to. I also did Totorak on my own without guides, so if it's easy enough to do with native intuition, then casual player will use that rather than resorting to guides.

My point is: the use of guides will depend on the nature of the content. if it is an endgame instance, then perhaps a guide will be used, if such a guide exists, but if it is a mid-level quest-based dungeon, then players will likely let the problem solve itself naturally, i.e., figure out the puzzle on their own.

I did most of FFXI nation rank quests without a guide. But of course those were different times.

Anyways.

A way to combat using guides for dungeons would be to implement dynamic puzzles. For example, Parley is a kind of dynamic puzzle solving feature. Obviously that would not be very useful in a dungeon environment, but the spirit of the ssytem could be applied to a dungeon.