[Suggestion] Hidden/Secret Dungeons

[Anima]

I've been thinking a lot lately, about what will spice the game with {Fun} and {Excitement} and I think Hidden Dungeons or similar things would be really awesome to see.

A "Hidden Dungeon [Open World]" would be cool to implement. SE could just tell us that a/# Hidden Dungeon has been implemented but doesn't tell us where or what is it or what monster awaits. Maybe just say "Great rewards awaits to those who are able to find and unravel the mysteries within"

When I think of Hidden/Secret Dungeons, I think about those 100 Floor towers, dungeons which is very difficult, lots of hidden bosses, lots of different paths to take which leads to multi-endings, dungeons with lots of traps like in Pyramid or tombs, dungeons which will take very long to finish, Sky Islands, Sea Kingdoms, Sunken ships, Abandoned Hi-tech ruins, etc.

An example of dungeon from FFXII is the Tomb of Raithwall, Sky Fortresses(Airships), Underground sewers(and many more!), or 100 Floor towers from various SE's games, Crystal Chambers/dungeons, FF: 4 Heroes of Light also has a few interesting places, FFX has lots of interesting places, and I think other FFs has lots of interesting places too. Dungeons like the one in Zelda series are really fun to play too! or White Knight Chronicles~

Here's a good Link to a Thread(Dead) which has lots of suggestions: Traps, Gadgets and Dungeons

The Mysterious aspect of it will add the excitement for trying to search and instead of standing around in town doing nothing, people can put up a Search party for the Hidden Dungeons. SE can even add Hidden Portals throughout places in the world such as caves, trees, temples, statues, etc. It would be even more interesting if SE added Lore to these, make use of the "Echoes" in the world's Lore because Story that involves Time, Paradoxes, etc can be very interesting.

What do you think?

[Konachibi]

I likes it, it'll feel much more like the final fantasies of old where exploring rewarded players with little secret areas.

Only problem I see with it is this is an MMO so once it's been discovered it won't stay hidden for very long and will simply become 'just another dungeon', which is a shame, but the first day or so of it's release will be exciting as hundreds of players all go dashing around trying to find where it is then hopping onto the forums in hopes of being the first person to shout "I FOUND IT! "

Little hidden areas like super-pretty caves hidden behind bushes or waterfalls and stuff have always been kinda fun though, I'd probably spend hours riding around on my chocobo trying to find them and take screenshots.

[Anima]

I likes it, it'll feel much more like the final fantasies of old where exploring rewarded players with little secret areas.

Only problem I see with it is this is an MMO so once it's been discovered it won't stay hidden for very long and will simply become 'just another dungeon', which is a shame, but the first day or so of it's release will be exciting as hundreds of players all go dashing around trying to find where it is then hopping onto the forums in hopes of being the first person to shout "I FOUND IT! "

Little hidden areas like super-pretty caves hidden behind bushes or waterfalls and stuff have always been kinda fun though, I'd probably spend hours riding around on my chocobo trying to find them and take screenshots.

Yeah! It's true that It won't be Hidden for a very long time and people will eventually discover them.

I was thinking, what If there are multiple entrances that will lead to "different parts" of the hidden dungeon that could not be accessed through the other part of the hidden dungeon?

I.E. (The Entrances should not be far apart and should be in one Area)
-You find Hidden Dungeon Z.
-You go through entrance A. You end up in a Dead-end, with a locked Door.
-You exit the Dungeon and search for another Entrance. You find entrance B. You fight
Key-holders. you obtain a Key.
-You find an old lever that won't budge. You go to Entrance A. You use the key and the
Locked door is now open.

and so on...

[Konachibi]

Yeah! It's true that It won't be Hidden for a very long time and people will eventually discover them.

I was thinking, what If there are multiple entrances that will lead to "different parts" of the hidden dungeon that could not be accessed through the other part of the hidden dungeon?

I.E. (The Entrances should not be far apart and should be in one Area)
-You find Hidden Dungeon Z.
-You go through entrance A. You end up in a Dead-end, with a locked Door.
-You exit the Dungeon and search for another Entrance. You find entrance B. You fight
Key-holders. you obtain a Key.
-You find an old lever that won't budge. You go to Entrance A. You use the key and the
Locked door is now open.

and so on...

That would be quite awesome, especially if the dungeon were really big and had loads of tunnels like a maze, it could take hours/multiple runs on seperate days to finally reach the end. Perhaps have it save on a weekly timer kind of like the WoW raid dungeons so 'casual players' don't have to rush things, and 'hardcore players' don't end up getting absolutely everything in a single day. It'd also give people something to look forward to every week, the perfect time-sink, at least untill they've aquired everything from it.

I liked Munba's idea though, never mention that the dungeon is there, and perhaps try and hide it in the patch installation or .dat files by giving it an unusual name so the dat miners won't find it.

Just something like "The ancient cave of Mor Dhannel was long since buried since it's infestation of Dolamites from the Black Shroud" slapped in somewhere during one of the lore stories. People would go out looking in Black Shroud and Mor Dhona for it when really it's starting entrance is hidden somewhere on the southern end of eastern Thanalan to give the idea of a giant underground cave that stretched on for miles and had multiple entrances (thus explaining how it's entrance could be in Thanalan instead of Black Shroud). Then the 'main entrance' which would be larger and more obvious to find could have rubble covering it so no one could get in, where as the small entrances that players will need to go into to aquire the keys to progress through the entire dungeon will be littered around Black Shroud and Thanalan behind bits of scenery or inside caves and things.

THEN perhaps after a few patches or during an expansion pack the main entrance could be opened, maybe citing a landslide as the cause of it being opened, or perhaps just to add another world boss in somewhere say an ancient monster bombarded it's way out of the cave (this enemy would then be locatable somewhere in Black Shroud), which is a clever way of adding a new dungeon AND a new NM without having to make up two seperate lores for them The newly opened dungeon from the main entrance would then be much larger, much longer, and much tougher than the smaller entrances since it'd be the main cave with the bigger enemies in.

[Tezz_Xivectro]

Not exactly a "hidden dungeon" concept, but...

They'd probably have to instance the actual dungeon. But the entrance to get inside would literally be random & changing locations all across eorzea.
But this seems like it would be more of a nuisance once players found all the spawn locations.
To counter this...

Instead the dungeon entrance would randomly appear while killing monsters. You & your party are out killing & suddenly a beam of light appears (or a door). Everyone hits accept & you enter the dungeon. This also somewhat cures the thought of "mindless grinding" on monsters.
(higher exp chain/link = higher chance of doors)

They could even categorize different dungeons that dropped from various fauna.

Community team, pitch some of these ideas while you're reading, please. ^^;

[Munba]

I'd love to see them. Also if it'll be like Konachibi said, it would be very FF. But they should write NOTHING about them in the patch notes or in the loadstone of course Only some LITTLE hints/riddles here and there in game, to find them.
/like

[Anonymoose]

It would be fun for the one day it was a secret. After it'd been found, it'd be no different than everything else we do in that we could just check the fansites and head in, lol.

[Anima]

It would be fun for the one day it was a secret. After it'd been found, it'd be no different than everything else we do in that we could just check the fansites and head in, lol.

Well It's more fun searching and looking for it real hard rather than getting the location automatically, isn't it?

Also, The layout or/and entrance position of the 100 Floor(or any/specific) Hidden/Secret/Bonus Dungeon could change slightly everytime we exit and enter again, like how FF: 4 Herous of the light were

[Munba]

A random dungeon idea could be like the giant sand-worm in FF6 (a random NM here maybe) that eats you e brings you to an underground area With the same concept, there could be some things/events around Eorzea.

[Tezz_Xivectro]

A random dungeon idea could be like the giant sand-worm in FF6 (a random NM here maybe) that eats you e brings you to an underground area With the same concept, there could be some things/events around Eorzea.

Oh nice. Can't believe i forgot about that one. The Sandworm battlefield in FF11 was horrible to gain access/enter though.