Linear, linear, linear

[Striker44]

And our proof of this is... rewards that were painfully lackluster in their own time, do not scale (unlike tomes or experience), and are gated by mobs with uniquely zero reward directly or indirectly?

And your suggestion in its place was? Oh, right, nothing, because you realize my point still 100% stands that it is likely impossible to find something in a dungeon reward that would have staying power in encouraging people to explore non-linear paths. Dungeon gear is actually quite good for someone leveling, by the way, and even moreso back in the ARR days when leveling was slower. It still didn't stop us (the playerbase) from ignoring it and just making dungeons linear.

[Boblawblah]

Its already getting review bombed on metacritic. And I mean both the 10/10s and the 0/10s. I seriously hate the internet

I try to see 0/10s as "I don't like it" and 10/10s as "I like it", you'll stay saner that way.

On topic, FFXVI is extremely linear. Exploration is pointless, so you're better off simply going for the main quest, or side quest, or hunt. And..that's it. I think I said it before, but it's XIII with better writing and combat. I'm personally enjoying it for the most part, but it very much shows CBU3's weaknesses as well as their strengths. Hell, they locked an mmo feature behind a side quest marked with a '+' lol.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I try to see 0/10s as "I don't like it" and 10/10s as "I like it", you'll stay saner that way.

On topic, FFXVI is extremely linear. Exploration is pointless, so you're better off simply going for the main quest, or side quest, or hunt. And..that's it. I think I said it before, but it's XIII with better writing and combat. I'm personally enjoying it for the most part, but it very much shows CBU3's weaknesses as well as their strengths. Hell, they locked an mmo feature behind a side quest marked with a '+' lol.

Uh no, both extremes are both extremes. A 0/10 is somebody absolutely hating it and refused to see the good qualities while the 10/10 is somebody who believes it to be absolute peak perfection who refused to see the bad qualities.

Youre probably trying to help me not get mad but I hate absolute extremism from the fanbase and theres nothing anyone can do to help me feel better about it because thats just a human trait that has been expanded thanks to internet culture.

We just have to deal with that a lot of people out there are just brain dead idiots and that makes me feel somewhat better c:

Anyway yeah its very linear but at least the top notch environmental design plays so much into my imagination about the world.

[Oizen]

Linear isn't as much of a problem as Formulaic.

I don't hate linear dungeons, I hate the fact dungeons in this game are 2 pulls, wall, boss, repeated 3 times, and have been for nearly 10 years.

[OM3GA-Z3RO]

Sadly, the moment they removed EXP from trash was the final nail in the coffin of ever making dungeons at least a little non-linear.

Making bosses the only things that give you EXP tells you to just go for the bosses.

Linear Dungeons
Single Square or Circle Room Raids

These things are here to stay and players are not free from the blame. Simplifying things like this, simplifies the formula of Dungeons and Raids. It is also easier for the devs on their "Super Busy" schedule.

[Seraphor]

Sadly, the moment they removed EXP from trash was the final nail in the coffin of ever making dungeons at least a little non-linear.

Making bosses the only things that give you EXP tells you to just go for the bosses.

Linear Dungeons
Single Square or Circle Room Raids

These things are here to stay and players are not free from the blame. Simplifying things like this, simplifies the formula of Dungeons and Raids. It is also easier for the devs on their "Super Busy" schedule.

Do you know why they're linear?

Because players wanted them that way.

All anyone wants to do is rush through the most efficient and quickest route to the end. Wall-to-wall pulls are the default for a reason.

[DiaDeem]

I'll take a focused linear fun adventure over an open world map 9 Billion miles across where all there is is grass, the same 3 enemy types, 4 meaningless dungeons that offer no challenge, and yet another f*cking shrine for the 589th time. I'm so tired of open world games. Elden Ring did it right one last time, and that's about it. I'll take games like GOW (either of the new ones), RE4 (OG or remake) or FFXVI over Starfield or either of the last two Zelda games every time.

The Linkle mod for BotW was neat though.

[Shurrikhan]

And your suggestion in its place was? Oh, right, nothing, because you realize my point still 100% stands that it is likely impossible to find something in a dungeon reward that would have staying power in encouraging people to explore non-linear paths.

Literally anything that has at least faintly greater reward-efficiency to the average dungeon-runner than not doing them. So far, we've seen them only been a penalty to rate of reward.

Sadly, the moment they removed EXP from trash was the final nail in the coffin of ever making dungeons at least a little non-linear.

Largely this.

EXP will affect every Leveling Roulette runner who isn't already level-capped on their job (i.e., the vast majority of those likely to end up in, say, leveling dungeons), whereas actual gear drops basically only affect those between the x5-x9 levels for whom that dungeon is still current (over the course of an expansion, probably a third or slightly less of players in a given Leveling Roulette dungeon). Granted, they could provide experience by other means at points along side-paths, such as by having an optional mini-boss or just having an exp reward from a side-objective, and in-dungeon FATE, or even from opening a chest, but that would require thinking several orders of magnitude too far out of the box, I guess...

Tomes are about as broadly useful, as they'll affect all but those already capped on relevant Poetics gear.

Do you know why they're linear?

Because players wanted them that way.

Players want to be rewarded and generally dislike backtracking or otherwise clunky and half-assed tack-ons.

The connection between that and specifically linear dungeons is pretty damn tangential, with its correlation dependent on the XIV devs'...

1. failing to give doing side-paths decent reward-efficiency and
2. failing to make the side-paths themselves interesting or to reconnect by any means other than back-tracking.

That being said...

Linear isn't as much of a problem as Formulaic.

I don't hate linear dungeons, I hate the fact dungeons in this game are 2 pulls, wall, boss, repeated 3 times, and have been for nearly 10 years.

Fully agreed. While I'd love to see some path variance, even if the particular route is forced as to keep things at the now-traditional 'just press W' pace of XIV's "Dungeons", just for more views into the pretty set pieces / reskin of the dungeon and to lets its novelty last a little longer, I don't really mind that XIV "Dungeons" are just, at the end of the day... hallways. But they do at least need more varied things to do over that hallway run.

(However, I still do want a new content mode that salvages "Dungeon" assets to create more freely explorable still-combat-heavy areas. Not for every dungeon, but at least for the ones that already seem pretty fit to that purpose.)

[Jojoya]

And yet we got Brackenhide, Nokhud Offensive, Academy, Neltharus and thats just Dragonflight alone. Shadowlands had the Market for example and BFA had Waycrest Manor. People minmax Raidtrash skips yet you dont see Blizzard going the stupid "teleport to boss in a circle" Route that Square went with

But they did not turn all dungeons into one path linear corridors. Most if not all dungeons from the latest expansion have multiple possible routes and paths, with plenty of mobs you don't need to pull but can if you want. And many have items you can interact with to make the dungeon faster, or unique group buffs if you have certain professions in the group, and so on.

Far more interesting then pull to wall -> aoe -> pull to wall -> aoe.

They stopped creating multi-path dungeons? Is that why 75% of dungeons even in this latest expansion are... multi-path dungeons?

I haven't played WoW since end of Legion so I have no idea what the new expansion dungeons are like.

Yes, they had stopped making the multi-path dungeons where you had true options on how to complete the dungeon. The closest you would get would be the dungeons that were set up in wings but you still have to clear every wing before you could proceed to the final boss.

If they've brought back multi-path dungeons in Dragonflight similar to what they were designing in Vanilla, great. If you still have to clear everything like The Nexus, then it's moot because you're really not being given choice if you have to clear all routes regardless to get to the end.

But there is still that 14 year gap where they had stopped making them. That the game is finally adding new ones after all those years may be experimental in nature. They're trying to figure out exactly what players are looking for in content after over a decade of ignoring the player feedback.

If players go back to skipping a large portion of the dungeons in favor of following an optimal route, it's very doubtful Executive management will allow the dev team to go to the additional effort (not to mention cost) of making the multipath dungeons in the future. It's got nothing to do with the developers wanting to be lazy with design (they've usually got far more ideas than it's possible to implement) and everything to do with the top of the corporate foodchain penny pinching. Those who hold the purse ultimately control the strings.

[Shurrikhan]

I haven't played WoW since end of Legion so I have no idea what the new expansion dungeons are like.

Yes, they had stopped making the multi-path dungeons where you had true options on how to complete the dungeon. The closest you would get would be the dungeons that were set up in wings but you still have to clear every wing before you could proceed to the final boss.

That... is a multi-path dungeon. If you can go 1234, 2314, 3214, etc.... that's... already multiple paths available. And that's all WoW has ever had within Vanilla, either, so there's been no "stop" there; it's the same capacity (though expanded, in some cases). And well beyond even 1.x outside of old Totorak (3 exits, with the furthest one giving more rewards, but increasingly risking death to the gasses inside [timer mechanic]).

Unless you're looking for a dungeon that is itself multiple dungeons, so that you only complete some third of it per run... how would that not fit the descriptor?

(Frequently, the individual mobs outside a boss foreshadow the mechanics of that boss, while the bosses leading up to the final may foreshadow the mechanics of the final boss. As such, I'm fine with the final boss truly being the final boss in the interest of the mechanics feeling thematically approached and less seemingly arbitrary than they otherwise would be.)

Some Dragonflight dungeons, for context:
Nokhud Offensive (any order, save for final boss)

Brackenhide Hollow (first and final bosses set order, multiple paths through all the mid-content)