FFXIV dungeons are a little bit too linear?

[TouchandFeel]

My two cents as someone who has professionally designed and built dungeons, raids and other instanced content for a triple A MMO.

If you create multiple branching paths, multiple bosses that will be randomly chosen, etc. All of that is extra content and development time that must be put in and that quickly chews through development resources. From a development standpoint it is better to put those resources into stuff you know will get played, instead of stuff that may just get skipped or not bothered with.
Why have two half-assed bosses, only one of which is guaranteed to be fought, when you could have used those resources to make one much better boss?
Create a dungeon with branching paths, multiple bosses that are selected randomly and all that jazz and you just used up the development resources for creating two dungeons and so instead of two separate linear dungeons, you have a single dungeon that branches and has some slight variations in it.
While you could try to reuse or repurpose assets, they still need to be properly integrated together and things like boss scripts still need to be created, so it may save some development time but often not as much as people like to assume and many times its actually less time and effort to do something from scratch than trying to rejigger something just to reuse it.

While some people may say they enjoy labyrinthine dungeons and the like, the reality is that most players don't. Players in general really don't like to backtrack, get turned around and lost fairly easily and dislike unnecessary travel time. They pretty much want to go from point A to B and get their reward quickly while having a good time along the way. Also, single player story driven RPG dungeons and MMORPG dungeons are completely different beasts. It's like comparing a Counterstrike map to a Bioshock level, sure they are both shooters but are vastly different in most other regards.

So, long story short, wanting more variation within a dungeon (i.e. nonlinearity, random bosses, etc.) is still more and more does not magically manifest and resources must be used up to make it happen, which results in more there but less elsewhere. Add to that the general player preference for things being more straightforward and less things that seem extraneous, and more linear but refined dungeon/raid designs end up being the best decision from a development point of view.
Overall two linear dungeons actually provides more variety in gameplay than one dungeon with branching for approximately the same development resources.

I'd be all for some form of nonlinear or somewhat randomized content, but that would have to be its own thing that has a separate resource pool allocated to it.

[Fevelle]

In the era o e-sports, where the only thing that matters is efficiency, there's no way they would implement something like this with the current playerbase mentality. sadly.

I miss FFXII, if only I could get an HD remaster, a FFVI remake or a game in the same type as those two, I'd drop FFXIV in the blink of an eye.

[dinnertime]

I think a complex open-world dungeon that takes plenty hours to fully explore would be pretty cool. Maybe add some couple of sanctuaries in it, serving as save points in single-player RPGs.

Other than a labyrinthine dungeon, I'd like to see a tower kind of dungeon, with lots of floors and gets harder when you progress more floors. I'd see that kind of thing as open-world though.

[Ilitsa]

I would love at least 1 (out of the two dungeons we get now) to have a non-linear design, it'd be a nice change of pace. The problem with it though is that, as said before, the "high-end" players would find the most "efficient" way to clear it with the least amount of work, and everyone would mindlessly follow their example, and we'd never be given the option to take another route. How often do you either choose to, or give others the choice to take the alternate paths in, say Dzemael Darkhold for the treasure chests? Or the extra rooms of Toto-rak, or Haukke Manor? It'd be wasted time for the developers to give it, because this community will NOT ever use it.

[Alipoprocks]

Basically, everyone here is asking for a different game. The only way a maze type layout with multiple, various rewards could work would be with gear variety and stat variety. We would also need longevity. Because no one will want to spend hours in a maze to gather fancy gear that will be replaced quickly.

Although, I suppose they could put very rare, random valuable items in chests with a low rng. Would be cool if they could change the items in the chests with every patch.

[Zojha]

Purrsonally, I'd be fine just having the illusion of exploration.

Scarlet Monastery in oldschool WoW for example. I went into the physical monastery in the overworld and then had four dungeons next to each other to enter, two of which needed a key from the library. That "felt" like exploration, even though in truth all the dungeons were largely linear corridors. The dungeons still felt like part of the whole, something that's completely missing with Alexander for example.

[VisRalis]

Atm one of the closest thing to open world dungeon is O'Ghomoro Mines for the Kobold beast tribe quests.
Can do it solo. Incentive to do as party for faster progress.
Not that complex to go around but it 'feels' like it and gotta double check map because of the side rooms.
It's like a mini-mini dungeon with multiple objectives (Kobold beast tribe quests) which can be tackled in closest order.
While doing it, joining in the FATEs is nice too.

Its a good base for further expansion for depth... But totally lacking in rewards or reason to stay long for serious 'dungeon crawl' or 'grind in a dungeon'.
(Anyways because its intended to grind in instances not open field).

- Field mob loot drops are... what did they drop again? T_T wasn't significant to remember and not enough.
- Not enough particular NMs or higher tier enemies to be fought in 'random encounters' (besides that big flying mark that spawns in the deepest room).

Could go on but for what it is, it felt to closest to typical dungeon zone and was fun too delve into it to carry out the Kobold's quests solo and as party.
If it could be further expanded, it would be worth while to visit more often other than daily Kobold quests.

[Magis]

Funny enough O'Ghomoro was going to connect to Titan's chamber. Top right was a passage that wasn't accessible.

[silentwindfr]

open world dungeon mustn't and aren't the solution is worst actually, open world dungeon lead to abuse where people stay to a spawn of a monster for X time for get what they want. at the end is not anymore a dungeon, people farm one place in the dungeon and is all.
we mustn't look into past for find new solution but really in the present.
so far what are the trouble with the dungeon we do have in mmoprg:
- they are linear!
- they are unchanging, means nothing inside change from one runs to another.
- they follow the same rule, meaning: Trash until we reach the first boss, then more trash until the second boss, rinse and repeat until last boss.

what need to be changed is to change this 3 point.
make the dungeon, less linear, less unchanging and more important make them different, not forced to be a rush throught trash until the boss... it's a lazy way to make dungeon!

[dinnertime]

With open-world dungeons, they could make the monster spawn randomly and on random areas, so people are made to search every nook and cranny of the dungeon.
With instanced dungeons, yes, they're linear. Not only in structure, but also in mechanics since they are unchanging, and it's always the same formula of trash > first boss > trash > second boss > trash > third boss.

If dungeons ever become complex, with the structure and mechanics that it takes more than the usual 30 minutes to complete then i'm fine with that. The impatient would just have to suck it up.
Though it's dreading to think doing it with bad DF groups however. Then I might be the one who needs to suck it up. Ahaha.