Dungeons we need to talk dungeons

[Artemiz]

Not talking about whether they are fun or entertaining. Nor is it difficulty, as difficulty =/=level design. Again, this isn't exclusive to FF14. FF13 was also heavily criticized for this, and again with FF7R.

What exactly is your problem with the current dungeons then? You seem very vocal about how "trash" they are yet apparently you aren't saying they are boring or too easy. What is is you expect from content designed for the entire player base?

[Velnora]

What exactly is your problem with the current dungeons then? You seem very vocal about how "trash" they are yet apparently you aren't saying they are boring or too easy. What is is you expect from content designed for the entire player base?

They are glorified hallways. I know they are boring and incredibly easy, but that is an issue separate from level design.

[Artemiz]

They are glorified hallways. I know they are boring and incredibly easy, but that is an issue separate from level design.

Cool, how did it work out when Square gave us options on which path to take then? From my memory everyone quickly memorized the "correct" route and ignored the rest of the dungeon. The closest thing I can imagine to a complex dungeon design that could work would be Delve from FFXI. What people did there was either get lost and killed, moan about having to kill tons of useless trash trying to find the boss or use illegal mods to find the boss they wanted, runs timing out before they could find the boss, or while fighting it were not uncommon. Only with like minded friends could you really expect a successful chilled out exploration type experience, random pugs didn't really provide it, certainly not on a consistent basis.

FFXIV dungeons are designed to be completed quickly, daily, consistently and with a random group of players using random jobs without anyone getting lost or anyone getting picked on. Their design works fine, it's the philosophy you don't like and that's completely understandable, you can please some of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all the time.

[Shurrikhan]

Cool, how did it work out when Square gave us options on which path to take then? From my memory everyone quickly memorized the "correct" route and ignored the rest of the dungeon.

I'm not sure why we're assuming that the only way for dungeons not to feel like mere unvaried hallways is for us to have side-routes that get one no nearer to the core objective...

One (bad) approach does not make for an exhaustive list of possibilities.