So how about them new dungeons? (Layout and difficulty)

[Kaurie]

The problem with multiple path and more open dungeons is that eventually there will be a "fastest/easiest/simpler path" and boom, nobody but those weird people running dungeons at min ilvl, or a new tank that does not know "the path" will ever take the other routes.

Sure, the solution here would be making the paths at random, a random path dungeon between some sets and order would be nice, say, you have 3 paths to reach boss 1, other 3 paths o boss 2 and othe 3 to reach boss 3, permutate the paths when dungeon start and even switch the boss order, that al leas will give you... 3x3x3x3 ways a dungeon could be ran, randomize trash mobs too and there, variety. Sure there are not player choices tho, but if players could chose they will go for the fastest way.

(edited oops quoted the wrong person)

Dungeon variation doesn't have to equal three path options. Here are some ways to spice it up:

1. Create a gauntlet where you fend off waves of enemies
2. Have your team split up, perhaps tank/heals get put in a poisonous room with an add that they have to survive in while the 2 DPS get put in a room where they need to avoid damage and destroy something to break out the healer/tank
3. Create a maze that is randomly generated every time you enter that requires puzzle solving to get through
4. Have mobs that do more than just the basic attacks and final sting - i.e. mobs that heal or mobs that interrupt, mobs that do more damage the more minions there are around them etc.
5. Have a dungeon where you are escaping, work your way in and then run your way out (Indiana Jones style)

Alternatively, you could have paths and they could work like:

1. 3 path options, where one is the fastest with the hardest mobs and one is the slowest with weakest mobs and one is in between - have the game inform you of this as you approach your choice (Bravely Default style)
2. 3 path options, where one is the 'path of the day' that generates extra reward in the roulette
3. 3 path options, where none are necessarily faster than the other, but favour certain compositions - 1 may be AoE friendly (got SMN?), 1 may be physical damage heavy (got PLD?), 1 may be single target focused (got melee or blm?) [this is a bit like T2 where left was better for physical damage and right for magical damage]

The problem with doing that, and any other implementation of branching paths in an instance, is that it does either one of these two things.

One, it would increase resources and time necessary to build those instances. Those branching paths don't just build themselves and then populate themselves with mobs, an artist has to build the area and a designer has to go in and setup all the mob encounters, event triggers and other hookups to make things happen in them. These extra resources would then take away from what else can be done since how much can be created by a certain group on the dev team is a finite and already defined number. So if they were to then dump more time and resources into creating a more "complex" dungeon with branching paths, they would probably only be able to release one dungeon per patch instead of two completely different dungeons. Me personally, I prefer the latter as I find there to be more variance and replayability with two, albeit more simple, dungeons compared to one dungeon with a few alternate paths.

Second scenario would be that the devs allot the same amount of resources to each dungeon but then spread it out between the branching paths which would result in either each branch being approx. 1/3 the length of the singular path design, resulting in a dungeon that is way shorter or they keep each path the same length but decrease the effort put into each one so they are of a lower quality. Again, as with the first scenario I prefer the way things are being done now compared to these alternatives.


Basically when creating content for a game, X number of devs can create Y amount of content to Z quality within N amount of time. If you change any of those variable, such as Y in the case of more areas in a dungeon, then adjustments to the other variables must happen to compensate.

Really the only way that such things could be implemented without either a decrease in quality or quantity would be if the were able to hire on more devs for that group so that more work could be done, but I get the feeling that trying to get more resources for his team is something Yoshi P has been working at for a long time.

Honestly though, if they got more resources for the dungeon team I would prefer that the quality of the stuff between the bosses be made more interesting with more interesting encounter setups, environmental mechanics, etc. instead of the fairly simplistic mob setup we have now. To me that would bring much greater enjoyment of the dungeons over branching paths.

In the end, I will always prefer going down one really cool hallway over deciding which boring and empty hallway to go down.

I feel like you are looking at the dev resources a little bit too simplistically. Part of the problem is not the amount of resources, but the inherent design of the game. FFXIV has shown that they have no problem pouring resources into making overly convoluted systems which would otherwise be a simple thing in other games (hall of the novice, SSS, Diadem, LoV etc.) They have the resources and the time, the issue is they have the design choice that their players will ultimately lower everything down to the lowest common demonstrator, so why create a more interesting/complex system that they'll tear apart anyway? In other words, the community will make it boring, so we'll just make it boring on release instead of wasting our time. It's a similar stance they have on anything that offers an "illusion of choice". Some people prefer it that way, I certainly don't, but that is the purposeful design that Square is taking. It has been successful, so why stop?