Unpopular Opinion: Dungeon design has been bad for a long time

[ZellosWilder]

100% agree with you OP, I've been telling my friend all the time about the dungeons that they all look great but the designs are terrible. Just too linear, no choices, no imagination, no replayability and just the same boring formula.

While ARR probably has the best designed dungeons and there are a few good dungeons here and there that try something different there isn't enough and they don't try to think outside the box too much in making some really good quality dungeons.


1. in some dungeon you should always get a choice to go this way or that way and sometimes even have many tunnels to pick from giving lots of choices, there shouldn't just be one linear route in getting to the end, there should be dead ends, locked doors, optional rooms or different routes to take which are all different but all lead to the same or different exit. Each route could also have it's own boss that is different to the other bosses.

2. in a dungeon you ain't suppose to have a map, you ain't suppose to know which way to go... in ff14 having a map takes away of any sort of exploration or getting lost and trying to find the way out, even though if you didn't have a map you wouldn't get lost anyways but I mean this as if there was more additional areas to explore with more routes to choose from etc.

3. RNG there needs to be more randomness in dungeons not always fighting the exact same monsters or knowing where all the chests are there should be hidden in different locations. Maybe there are additional hazards to avoid like traps or depending on time of day different monsters appear or different things happen like if its nighttime or a different weather etc

4. give more of a reason to go back into a dungeon, I find most of the time when you finish a dungeon for the first time you have little to no reason to go back into it only if you get it in roulette again or levelling another job but there should be some kinda exclusives that make it worth going back, maybe some dungeons are tied to some side quests so you have to redo them again and complete some optional task example a hidden boss due to having a key item to make them appear or having to help guide a npc through the dungeon and make sure they survive during the bosses etc in order to complete the quest.

5. add harder optional dungeons, while the MSQ and levelling dungeons should be easy to finish there should be some challenging dungeons where you don't always expect to win as maybe the bosses are very hard or maybe you can run out of time due to getting lost in trying to find the way out because the dungeon might be very complex like a labyrinth etc you could probably add in some puzzles to figure out as well adding more thinking about what to do.


The current dungeon formula is extremely lacklustre and needs some proper re-imagining I feel adding a few additional things that I have mentioned here would really make doing dungeons more fun and refreshing. As it stands the current dungeon formula makes them throw away dungeons with no sense of coming away from one after finishing it and thinking it was incredible experience.

[CazzT]

1. in some dungeon you should always get a choice to go this way or that way and sometimes even have many tunnels to pick from giving lots of choices, there shouldn't just be one linear route in getting to the end, there should be dead ends, locked doors, optional rooms or different routes to take which are all different but all lead to the same or different exit.

2. in a dungeon you ain't suppose to have a map, you ain't suppose to know which way to go... in ff14 having a map takes away of any sort of exploration or getting lost and trying to find the way out, even though if you didn't have a map you wouldn't get lost anyways but I mean this as if there was more additional areas to explore or route to choice etc.

3. RNG there needs to be more randomness in dungeons not always fighting the exact same monsters or knowing where all the chests are there should be hidden in different locations. Maybe there are additional hazards to avoid like traps or depending on time of day different monsters appear or different things happen like if its nighttime or a different weather etc

4. give more of a reason to go back into a dungeon, I find most of the time when you finish a dungeon for the first time you have little to no reason to go back into it only if you get it in roulette again or levelling another job but there should be some kinda exclusives that make it worth going back, maybe some dungeons are tied to some side quests so you have to redo them again and complete some optional task example a hidden boss due to having a key item to make them appear or having to help guide a npc through the dungeon and make sure they survive during the bosses etc in order to complete the quest.

5. add harder optional dungeons, while the MSQ and levelling dungeons should be easy to finish there should be some challenging dungeons where you don't always expect to win as maybe the bosses are very hard or maybe you can run out of time due to getting lost in trying to find the way out because the dungeon might be very complex like a labyrinth etc you could probably add in some puzzles to figure out as well adding more thinking about what to do.

1 - You could have 10 different paths, players will ALWAYS choose the most efficient/easiest. You waste time and resources designing one elaborate dungeon that players will ignore most of the design.

2 - I rarely look at my map in dungeons.

3 - This I would like to see. I've always wanted to see bosses change each time you run a dungeon. Especially when you're fighting a specific named boss. First time run, you fight the named boss(es) related to the story/quest you're in there for. After that, if you have no NPs, the boss is randomized.

4 - EXP, Tomes, gear for alts/jobs, mounts, crafting mats... This stuff is already in place.

5 - Harder dungeons already exist. Dungeons that have a hard fail mechanic? No.

[Seddrinth]

I've been running a lot of dungeons this past month and everyday I see dps doing less damage than healers/tanks and players failing basic mechanics. If you try to make the dungeons any harder it will not end well.

[Raim]

People say that players will just choose the fastest path. What if you had 2-3 paths and gates closed on two, rubble covered the pathways, etc and each time it was different?

[Edax]

What if you had 2-3 paths and gates closed on two

You just described a single path.

[Zikh]

Yup, FFXIV has probably the laziest dungeon and raid content level design wise I've ever witnessed in an MMO. It's THAT bad.

Every dungeon is a straight corridor, trash has ZERO mechanics and every corridor (uh.. dungeon) is simply filled with walls to make you waste your time. Raids are one room instances and the room shapes are square or round, that's it. Nothing else. Wildstar's Sanctuary of the Sword Maiden was a great instance, level design wise and Genetic Archives and Datascape were bloody phenomenal. WoW has several awesomely designed raids like Nighthold, Antorus, the Burning Throne, Ulduar and Ice Crown Citadel. FFXIV has no level design, at all.

One of the issues I can see is the lack of interrupt and/or silence mechanics on bosses and trash. Trash you simply pull to the wall, every time and AoE them down, every time. It's been like that for ages. You repeat the same thing every time and there's isn't even a slightest chance to fail at any point.

In the Yoshi P's 100m dash Olympic event, Usain Bolt has to stop every 25m for 2s, for reasons unknown to the rest of mankind.

[Orbus]

Certainly a single line hardly qualifies as a "dungeon", but people are just going to pick the shortest route anyway essentially making anything with alternate paths a straight line anyway.
I mean, when's the last time a group you were in checked out the optional rooms in the stone vigil?

Plus huge sprawling dungeons that could take over a half hour to finish just wont work in the roulette's.
Then you also have people dropping out whenever the aurum vale comes up, typically tanks because the first room is ironically the hardest part of the dungeon and no amount of healing will allow them to cheese pull to the boss room and they're too impatient to, ehem, respect the content.

[ZellosWilder]

1 - You could have 10 different paths, players will ALWAYS choose the most efficient/easiest. You waste time and resources designing one elaborate dungeon that players will ignore most of the design.

Wrong... anyone doing the dungeon for the first time are not going to know which path is the fastest/easiest nor will you know in a few runs as if there is 10 routes to choose from you would need to do it at least 10 times to have a slight idea and even then you would not know for sure unless you checked online with exact times for each. As well as having additional bosses that are unique in taking certain routes re-playability increases alot here than how it is now.

2 - I rarely look at my map in dungeons.

You didn't even read what a wrote... I even said you don't need to look at the map anyways with the current dungeons because they are so linear... the idea is based on having a more complex dungeon layout design.

4 - EXP, Tomes, gear for alts/jobs, mounts, crafting mats... This stuff is already in place.

I'm not talking about items or rewards reasons to go back as in replayability as in some hidden bosses which are tied to side quests or going into a deeper part of the dungeon to find something etc

5 - Harder dungeons already exist. Dungeons that have a hard fail mechanic? No.

(hard) is just a name tag on the dungeon there is nothing hard about doing the exact same formula as what is considered as a normal dungeon.


You also have to look at combining all these ideas and not just looking at each one individually because you ain't looking at this with an open mind you are just looking at it with the current dungeon system.

[CazzT]

Wrong... anyone doing the dungeon for the first time are not going to know which path is the fastest/easiest nor will you know in a few runs as if there is 10 routes to choose from you would need to do it at least 10 times to have a slight idea and even then you would not know for sure unless you checked online with exact times for each. As well as having additional bosses that are unique in taking certain routes re-playability increases alot here than how it is now.

It will only take a few runs to determine which is the most efficient/easiest. No one designs a dungeon to be run only once.
What you've written here, though, makes me wonder how long you've been playing MMOs. People will skip as much as they can to make a run faster. It doesn't take long to figure out what to skip. Within a week it would be clear which path would be the best.

Your reply to me is rather agitated.

You didn't even read what a wrote... I even said you don't need to look at the map anyways with the current dungeons because they are so linear... the idea is based on having a more complex dungeon layout design.

I'm not talking about items or rewards reasons to go back as in replayability as in some hidden bosses which are tied to side quests or going into a deeper part of the dungeon to find something etc[/quote]
I did read what you wrote.
What incentive is there for people to run a dungeon a second time if not for rewards?

(hard) is just a name tag on the dungeon there is nothing hard about doing the exact same formula as what is considered as a normal dungeon.

You also have to look at combining all these ideas and not just looking at each one individually because you ain't looking at this with an open mind you are just looking at it with the current dungeon system.

You need to stop making assumptions.
The way you're approaching this is by focusing on what the current design is and how to change from that. That's the wrong way to approach it and that causes what you're accusing me of.
You have to consider how the players will consume the content you create. Players will always find the most efficient path to the end. That is why I said you could have a dungeon with ten different paths. Players will ignore nine of them. First time through is irrelevant because that's not how the dungeon will be handled for 99.99% of its life in the game. People in this thread have already pointed out examples from other games that alternate paths are ignored in favor of the most efficient/easiest. You have to have an open mind to find creative ways to engage people in what you know will be a linear dungeon, regardless of how many paths you offer.

Stop making assumptions about others.

[Hawklaser]

It will only take a few runs to determine which is the most efficient/easiest. No one designs a dungeon to be run only once.
What you've written here, though, makes me wonder how long you've been playing MMOs. People will skip as much as they can to make a run faster. It doesn't take long to figure out what to skip. Within a week it would be clear which path would be the best.

The way you're approaching this is by focusing on what the current design is and how to change from that. That's the wrong way to approach it and that causes what you're accusing me of.
You have to consider how the players will consume the content you create. Players will always find the most efficient path to the end. That is why I said you could have a dungeon with ten different paths. Players will ignore nine of them. First time through is irrelevant because that's not how the dungeon will be handled for 99.99% of its life in the game. People in this thread have already pointed out examples from other games that alternate paths are ignored in favor of the most efficient/easiest. You have to have an open mind to find creative ways to engage people in what you know will be a linear dungeon, regardless of how many paths you offer.

Why can't a dungeon be designed from the perspective that it might only be ran a handful of times by any one individual? Why do they have to be designed with the intent of being glorified hamster wheels that occasionally give us loot to keep us running on the hamster wheel? Give me one reason for the hamster wheel's continued existence other than to slow down content consumption. Just one.

When the goal is to keep us on the same hamster wheel as long as possible, by all means we are going to find the best way to be as lazy as possible about getting that wheel to turn just enough to hand out the rewards.

You mention you have to have an open mind to find creative ways to keep people engaged in the linear repetitive dungeons, aka the beloved hamster wheels, you also need an open mind to find the creative ways to encourage people to get away from the hamster wheels that so many MMO's have conditioned people to crave as well.

Going back to the RPG roots of pen and paper, one of the first things any GM/DM learns is players will do something you won't expect and never even thought to plan for. When that happens, one of two things happens... the GM/DM essentially crashes ending the session/hard vetos the player's choice, or they roll with it. The ones that roll with it, also tend to be the ones that are fun to play with as they can handle people going off script. The other ones, good luck as unless things go how they planned it... things can get dicey for everyone quickly. But you also have to think about what beyond just wacky unexpected player choices let them do this kind of stuff. Its all the tools they have available to them.

This was said in regards to CC earlier in the thread.

They cant put more than one of those every so often, because they "cant require" you to have specific dps, so they can only count on you having a tank.

I guess Repose doesn't count as CC anymore. All healers have that. Tanks have two. A stun and an interrupt. Melee DPS all have a Stun. Ranged DPS all have a Bind and an Interrupt. BLM has an AoE sleep. Only ones left out are RDM and SMN, but those also have the added utility of being able to back up heal and raise instead which are just as valuable.

Where the problem comes in, is some players got clever and figured out that certain dangerous enemies could be kept CC'ed for extended periods of times, and some devs didn't like this. Which resulted in a lot of CC immune mobs, in addition to gradual resistance buildup, out side of very, very specific ones. Essentially taking away part of our problem solving toolkits.

So that left us with essentially two options, avoid the mobs or kill the mobs. People went with the avoid the mobs first. Devs didn't like that either so they put up gates that would not come down unless we killed the mobs first. So now we got a singular tool left. Kill the mobs. We have one tool with which to approach the problem, so we found the most effective way to apply it.

This stripping of us players to one effective tool is what resulted in the current design. We adapted to having one tool. Unfortunately, for more involved dungeons, we will need more effective tools available to us. And unless we get more tools, and dungeons developed with the consideration that we might do something unexpected, all we will ever get are hamster wheels.