new dungeons vs old dungeons

[Okamimaru]

it kinda feels like they had an idea of making dungeons with all kinds of extra offshoot rooms on the sides to hide treasures or just mobs and then they sorta abandoned the idea and made the dungeons very linear all of a sudden... when you look at some of the early dungeon like sastasha nm and copperbell mines nm they are way more interesting than some of the later linear dungeons like antitower, hullbreaker hm ect.. anybody else feel like SE kinda just gave up on dungeon design?

[TallonOverworld]

I really don't think they gave up on the design at all if not improved it.
At least for hw, they did a great job in implementing the general dragon-ish, knight-ish theme on dungeons and also to fit the story line. I enjoyed almost every hw dungeon from dusk vigil to sohm-al hard except arf due to the lore farm but in terms of design all of them were great...

[Moomba33]

I suspect they stopped bothering with optional rooms because their data showed that most groups were skipping them.
Haukke Manor HM is the best example I can think of. There's an optional room at the end that has two equipment containing treasure chests. It's not guarded by enemies so it's basically free company seals.
I haven't seen a group for for those chests in years. Whenever I go to the dungeon I run back and grab them once everyone else has left.

[bswpayton]

Its prob because most people turn out just wantting to speed run all dungeons

[Okamimaru]

its kinda sad that people dont take the time to really appreciate the dungeons... think imma start dungeon walking tours where people can go in actually look around at all the little details...

[MuseTraveller]

I suspect they stopped bothering with optional rooms because their data showed that most groups were skipping them.
Haukke Manor HM is the best example I can think of. There's an optional room at the end that has two equipment containing treasure chests. It's not guarded by enemies so it's basically free company seals.
I haven't seen a group for for those chests in years. Whenever I go to the dungeon I run back and grab them once everyone else has left.

I sure as heck hope they forget the chest rooms in Haukke so I can go back and get that manor wax/varnish, if the RNG is generous.

[Zojha]

its kinda sad that people dont take the time to really appreciate the dungeons...

Well, taking time to appreciate the dungeons once is nice and dandy! Maybe even twice or thrice.

But once you've done it 20 times or more, you usually just want to get your reward and be done with the thing ASAP. And MMOs are built on massive repetition of content.

[Tint]

there has to be something worth in the optional rooms. like others have said the crafting materials in haukke. in amdapor there was a minion (demon brick) and another crafting mat.

they could also implement a bonus when you cleared the whole dungeon. get a few extra tomes, or whatever... a special chest with extra loot at the end, or a door into the aquapolis... a special boss could spawn maybe? but yeah, nobody has time to play this game, so dungeons have to be able to be finished within 20 mins so we can do... what again was it...?

when the reward at the end is always the same, and there is nothing worthwhile in the optinal rooms, of course people will skip them. but dungeons don't have to be like that trash-trash-trash-boss hallway setup.

[RopeDrink]

Haukke Manor HM is the best example I can think of.

COUGH - Brayflox Longstop - COUGH.

They certainly haven't given up on the idea, just limited it to chests being visibly a walk away - enough for a stray player to pick them up while their tank is being all 'must zerg and pick up three packs'. In comparison, places like Brayflox encourage the light exploration, seeing as saving goblins (essentially a sub-task) provides chests, while others are very well hidden in their own side-rooms that you are highly unlikely to go to during a clear. Decided to solo it about 8 times to gather the Battlemage Set for an alt (as well as re-do a Hunting log after a GC transfer) and it seems that you can save 3 Goblins (3 Chests + 1 for the first drake you kill after first boss), along with (can't remember if it's two or three) extra chests at the lake, and one (with a hidden Coerl that is tougher than the average trash) guarding a chest at the end which provides class-specific green-rings.

That's 3 guaranteed dungeon drops, 1 ring chest, and 6-7 regular chests (which have a chance of becoming silver chests). I have 1200'ish hours in this game and it was only at the weekend I noticed this, because every group during my levelling days were just chomping at the bit to complete it ASAP. Undersized, you can rush from A to B in about 6.40/7.20mins and snag quite a lot of 31-32 gear for alts (or just piledrive them into your Seal collection), and barely anyone made any effort to capitalize on this back in my day. Some of the later ones have optional rooms or hidden alcoves and crevices that hold chests, but the 9/10 liklihood is they'll be skipped. Don't get me wrong, when it comes to the lower dungeons, I don't want to spend all day max-clearing it, but adding some appeal (extra XP would be an example incentive for, say, mapping a dungeon per visit [preferably without 20 tonnes of trash in the way]) could be good for actual levellers, seeing as chests are largely ignored.

[Acidblood]

COUGH - Brayflox Longstop - COUGH.

When ARR launched most groups did do the optional content in Brayflox (and other dungeons)... but then most people were still levelling at that point, so the extra XP, and chance at good gear (few players had good crafters back then), was welcome.

The problem now is that levelling is so fast (with the biggest reward coming from finishing the dungeon) that taking the time to get a bit of extra XP per run, or a slight upgrade on gear (which is now easy to buy / craft), is rarely worth it.

And when it comes to the new 'expert' dungeons, no one needs XP (level capped), and the iLvl of the gear is already 2 patches old (at best it is OK for less played jobs, or seals), so is it really any wonder that everyone takes the path of least resistance to the only thing of any real value (i.e. tomes). If the optional content was rewarding for the time spent (i.e. better tomes per hour, a chance at relevant iLvl gear, etc.), with a difficultly level to match, then you would see a lot more groups at least attempting it.