Themed Dungeons - Bringing Flavor back.

[Zantetsuken]

Final Fantasy Series has traditionally had themed dungeons that have required players to adapt to very specific conditions in order to complete them.

Some examples:

• The Sunken Shrine in FFI required the party to be able to breathe underwater via use of the Oxyale (空気の水).
• The Magnetic Cave in FFIV which rendered useless any metallic weapons/armor.
• Damaging floors which required/encouraged the use of float to pass (FFIV)
• The Fanatic's Tower in FFVI in which magic was your only way of attack.
• Oeilvert in FFIX which locked out all magic and must be completed with physical attacks and items.

While FFXI saw a taste of restrictive dungeons in 'Salvage', it didn't really go all the way as you could still bring whatever jobs/gear you wanted and just unlock it later.

I think it would be neat to see FFXIV with some thematic dungeons that restrict things like magic, physical attacks, TP generation, etc. In addition, elemental themed dungeons could deal constant damage to players unless they have a high enough affinity to that particular element.

Likewise, they should include bonus segments of future dungeons that are completely inaccessible unless a specific item/spell/class/gear type is used to enter it. It could even be set up where a DoL needs to harvest an item inside the dungeon and a DoH needs to craft that item into a key in order to unlock an optional corridor.

There could even be dungeons that are tailored specifically to DoW and DoH classes. The possibilities are practically limitless.

The main drawback is that this content would not be accessible to everyone, and we might see a fair amount of whining over new content that favors one class over others. But then, it might encourage players to level a new class as well...