FFXIV dungeons are a little bit too linear?

[Nestama]

What SE could do is give dungeons different pathways per run. It'll still be a linear pathway, but instead of going down the exact same road, you might have to go in a different direction and fight a different mini-boss. Final boss could also be different, but only if everyone in the party has finished the dungeons quest.

Pathway roulette in your Expert roulette.

[Khalithar]

While I've stated I do prefer the linear dungeon design, another thought I had while thinking on this topic, what about them just doing a partially randomized dungeon? Say the bosses of the place or the layout is different each time while maintaining parity in the overall difficulty/time of completion?

[Erendis]

As someone who always gets lost I prefer linear dungeons, sorry...

[Ilitsa]

People complained and whined about toto-rak's layout. Also OP's comparison to an MMO and non MMO is a bit of a disservice,

the "other" big MMO is no better, linear dungeons are a standard thing in most MMO games, it's not a good, or a bad thing, it just is what it is, really

[ElHeggunte]

I don't know why people keep cherrypicking very specific examples from WoW. The vast majority of WoW's dungeons are just as linear as FFXIV's, Blizzard has just gotten better at hiding how straightforward they are (like in Ilitsa's photo). About the only thing you have a say in is what order you kill the bosses, but since in most cases you're required to kill all of the bosses anyway, it doesn't really matter.

We also need to stop trying to compare MMORPGs to single-player console RPGs because that's an extreme apples/oranges scenario for a number of reasons that have already been mentioned in this thread.

[Culfinrandir]

True. But if SE can't code us simply jumping from a cliff (as opposed to walking up and back down again) or hoping over a railing (I'm looking at you Gridania Inn), then... it's just sad to think about. These walls shouldn't have existed in the first place. (Sides, nothing wrong with finding a glitch in the system )

Totally agree, should have been done from the start. It's just that it would take time & money to go back & redo old content. It's not that I don't want them to, because I have the same wanderlust as you.

[Jeykama]

I don't know why people keep cherrypicking very specific examples from WoW.

It's not cherrypicking. The example of Blackrock Depths/Stratholme/whatever that EQ zone was etc. are large non-linear dungeons from previous MMOs (important) that are easy to get lost in with optional objectives like the OP seems to desire, and explaining why they were discontinued for more linear dungeons.

1) they're huge dev resource sink, imagine something the 10x the size and visual intricacy of the Arboretum - they don't even want to do three dungeons per major patch, so it would have to last basically a whole expansion for one dungeon with their standards.
2) getting lost tends to be a waste of time, casual time-limited players tend to not enjoy "wasting time"
3) dungeon-running players tend to chase objectives and goals. the first time through they may enjoy taking in the sights, but afterwards they want it over with. Heck, a lot of HW dungeons have optional chests off the beaten track and mostly the're ignored.
4) ergo, players will prefer to not waste time getting lost and make a beeline for their objectives, thus invalidating the majority of the dungeon and wasting dev time.

Granted, the devs don't seem adverse to creating instantly obsolete content, but huge dungeons just seem a colossal waste of everyone's time when more concentrated zones lend time for designing interesting bosses (because most of BRD bosses were rather... not special).

[Eimian_Eda]

I don't know why people keep cherrypicking very specific examples from WoW. The vast majority of WoW's dungeons are just as linear as FFXIV's, Blizzard has just gotten better at hiding how straightforward they are

Giving the player the illusion of choice, is better than not even trying. (Don't forget that even though WoW also has linear dungeons, there are enough tricks/areas that you can explore around to do the dungeon different, or even ignore trash mobs entirely.. something you can't do in FF14.)

But alas, we will continue to get lazy, themepark designs, because this game's playerbase seems to like lazy, themepark designs.
Bare minimum work for bare minimum play.

They could reduce the GCD while they're at it, just makes things needlessly extended.

[Cheraa]

As Dungeons today are mostly used to gear up a fresh max. Level Charakter and then providing some kind of currency system to make it still viable as Content, it doesn't make sense to make it not linear.
No one today runs Dungeons for loot. It is just for ESO and therefor only the fastest way is the way to go.

Another Point from MMOs today vs MMOs before 2005 is the Player base. Back the days MMOs has been played be Computer Nerds that played on a daily base with 3-6 hours each day.

Today, MMOs are played mostly by Gamer that spend around 2 hours a day with gaming.
Releasing a multilayer Dungeon today that needs 4h+ to complete? Wouldn't been played much overall.

[Zephrey]

If they had a multi-route option, they could make it so that the route is randomized, meaning only certain doors are open each time you enter.
So each time you enter, it's a "different" dungeon experience.

I guess that's still pretty linear but it'd add a bit more differentiation to each time you do the dungeon.
They could also make an "easy" "medium" "hard" path and then add loot accordingly, but I'm sure people would just rage about that.

Also I didn't see this at first->

What SE could do is give dungeons different pathways per run. It'll still be a linear pathway, but instead of going down the exact same road, you might have to go in a different direction and fight a different mini-boss. Final boss could also be different, but only if everyone in the party has finished the dungeons quest.

Pathway roulette in your Expert roulette.

I agree with this :O
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OR! What they could do is had side objectives, similar to Diadem, that gives extra Esos. You could speed run the full dungeon for quick esos, or do the longer, more "treasure-hunty" dungeons for extra esos.